"All the relationships in Act 1 of A View From The Bridge are unhealthy" Discuss

The relationship between Eddie and Catherine is an interesting one as Eddie’s motivation towards his actions with her seems to change and develop as the play progresses. His first problem with her is that he doesn’t want her to grow up and as she develops into a woman he wants to try and stop her from “walkin’ wavy” and cant bare the thought of all “those flirty flirty guys With their flirty flirty eyes”. This as a concern seems totally natural as he is only trying to protect her. Catherine doesn’t help the situation by still acting like a kid. Beatrice tells her that “You still walk around in front of him in you slip…or like you sit on the edge of the bathtub talkin’ to him when he is shaving”. These two features of their relationship seem perfectly normal, but as the first act progresses it becomes more obvious that Eddies is having changes in his reasoning for stopping her from leaving home. This change comes from the ever growing lust that seems to haunt Eddie’s subconscious. As the act draws to a close it seems frighteningly obvious that Eddie is beginning to have thoughts of a sexual nature and fells that Catherine is his property. He feels that Rodolfo goes out with her “and takes and puts his filthy hands on her like a goddam thief” Originally Eddie and Catherine’s relationship is a normal one that you would expect to find in any family but as the play unfold Miller tries to convey the mounting sexual tension between them. He coveys this through scenes with phallic imagery and by the end of the first act it can be said that their relationship is totally unhealthy. The relationship between Catherine and Rodolfo also manages to make Catherine and Eddie’s relationship unhealthier. Rodolfo does this by putting strain on their relationship. Eddies then becomes “jealous” and often seems paranoid. This manages to expand and bring to the surface Eddie’s incestuous felling towards Catherine. This new Eddie is strange and is described as “like a stranger” “it was only a passion that had moved into his body”. This demonstrates that as the first act progresses the relationship between Eddie and Catherine has become even unhealthier.

Eddie and Beatrice’s relationship is also damaged due to Catherine. As Eddie’s infatuation with his niece increases, his interest in Beatrice decreases. This puts stress on their relationship as it seems that their marital relations have stopped. Beatrice asks Eddie “When am I going to become a wife again Eddie?” to which Eddie replies “I don’t want to talk about it”. This is not a healthy relationship for a man to have with his wife and therefore it can be said that their relationship as a man and wife has become unhealthy.

This bad relationship between Eddie and Beatrice, which has been caused by Catherine, subsequently puts strain on Catherine and Beatrice’s relationship. Catherine and Beatrice had and still have at the end of act one a strong relationship they are both concerned about one another but the audience becomes increasingly aware that although they are both fond of each other Beatrice’s views on Catherine might have become slightly distorted by her bad relationship with Eddie. It could be viewed that she has started to become jealous of Catherine as she has usurped her as both the love of Eddie and the woman round the house. Even Beatrice seams to see this “maybe I’m jealous”. This seems to be an odd thing for a married woman to do and this lack of love that leads to jealousy could be seen as an unhealthy feeling to have in a supposedly loving family.

Miller seems very interested in exploring the emotions behind people relationships and what they show about the character. In Most of the relationships in Act 1 of A View From The Bridge it seems that the reasoning behind the characters actions a all perfectly normal, legitimate and seem to be generated out of concern for each other. But below this outer façade is a much more sinister inner core of reasoning that seems to be generated by the subconscious. These subconscious urges, distort the character’s actions, turning their motives from loving family values, to twisted sexual desires and nagging questions of sexual inadequacy. I think that it is safe to say that from all of the relationships I have looked at we could say that they are all unhealthy, but as there are more relationships in the first act, other than the one I have looked at, it would be impossible to agree that all of the relationships in it are unhealthy.