Beatrice and Eddie have a good relationship overall but Beatrice does have some criticisms of Eddie. The main criticism is about his relationship with Catherine. Beatrice thinks that Eddie treats her like a little kid ‘what’re you gunna stand over her ‘til she’s forty?’ Another criticism is the way Eddie treats their love life ‘It’s almost three months you don’t feel good’ this is refereeing to how long it’s been since they last had sex. In this relationship you tend to sympathise with Beatrice more because it seems that he loves Catherine more due to the way he protects her so much.
On page 61 Beatrice says ‘whatever happened we all done it and don’t you forget it.’ By this she meant they can’t blame everything on Eddie and that they all had some part in what led up to Eddie talking to the immigration office. For example Catherine could have stopped Eddie treating her like a kid. This would have stopped Eddie getting jealous and therefore he would have had no reason to tell the authorities.
At the end of the play Arthur Miller used Beatrice’s character to make the audience sympathise with Eddie just before he dies. He did this using Eddie’s last words ‘My B!’ This shows that even after everything that happened he still has compassion.
When Eddie first finds out that Marco and Rodolfo have arrived he is neither happy nor sad and doesn’t mind about them staying in his house as long as he doesn’t have to give up his bed. Gradually his attitude starts to change and he begins to respect Marco but he starts to dislike Rodolfo more and more. This is shown by the way he directs everything he says at Marco ‘He could be very good, Marco. I’ll teach him again. The scene that describes the relationship best is the boxing scene at the end of act 1. In this scene Eddie shows Rodolfo how to box, during this time he says that Rodolfo is good but he doesn’t seem to be sincere and is instead just making him look like a fool. At the end of this scene Marco challenges Eddie to try to pick up a chair by one of its legs. Eddie could not do this so Marco tried ‘he kneels, grasps, and with strain slowly raises the chair higher and higher, getting to his feet now. Rodolfo and Catherine have stopped dancing as Marco raises the chair over his head.’ This foreshadows the end of the play when Marco stabs Eddie in a show of strength ‘Eddie lunges with the knife. Marco grabs his arm, turning the blade inward and pressing it home’.
Before Marco and Rodolfo arrive Eddie tells Catherine about a boy called Vinny Bolzano who told the immigration office about his uncle, after this they dragged him down the stairs and spat on him in the street. This story mirrors what happens at the end of the play when the whole town turns against Eddie. This story made what Eddie did even more shocking as he was the one saying that she must not tell anyone. What made it even more shocking is that he broke the Sicilian code of honour. The Sicilian code of honour is the trust and loyalty in the family.
Alfieri acts as engaged narrator. He is the bridge between the audience and the action on stage. Because he can speak directly to the audience he has the power to guide the audience in their responses to Eddie. ‘He was a good man as he had to be in a life that was hard and even.’ Even though this was said early on in the play this should have stuck in as he was talking about Eddie in the past tense which means he was already dead. In one of the sessions Eddie reveals his thoughts about Rodolfo and about him being with Catherine. In response Alfieri gives Eddie two ways in which he can deal with it. The first was to talk to the immigration office which Eddie doesn’t take too kindly to ‘Oh Jesus no, I wouldn’t do nothin’ about that.’ The second was to let Catherine live her own life ‘The child has to grow up’ this was not the advice Eddie was looking for though. Eddie wanted some legal help which would stop Rodolfo marrying Catherine. These scenes also help show why Eddie is so protective with Catherine ‘I worked like a dog twenty years so a punk could have her…’ The thing these scenes show the most though is how desperate he was to stop them getting married as he looks for anything that would stop Rodolfo and Catherine getting married.
Arthur Miller attempted to create a modern tragic hero in Eddie. A tragic hero is someone who goes through a complete reversal of fortune which is brought on himself by his own error of judgement and seems to bring about his own self destruction. Eddie doesn’t start off with the conventional fortune a tragic hero has but he starts off with a great deal of respect and friendship ‘Go bowlin’, Eddie?’ After he tells the authorities he loses this and he becomes an outcast from the rest of his community ‘He bites people when they sleep! He comes when nobody’s lookin’ and poisons decent people.’ A tragic hero has a tragic flaw that causes the downfall of the hero. Eddie’s tragic flaw was his over protectiveness of Catherine. As if he had stopped treating her like a kid and let her live her own life he would never have told the authorities about Marco and Rodolfo. A tragic hero seems to be heading towards an inevitable destiny meaning it is foreshadowed throughout the story. Alfieri is used to foreshadow Eddie’s destiny. He does this using his narrative speeches ‘I could have finished the whole story that afternoon.’ Another way Arthur Miller does this is by using certain events e.g. when Eddie is challenged to lift the chair holding only one leg. A tragic hero is represented as an exceptional figure and no matter how bad his crimes the audience is left with a sense of pity for the character when he dies at the end. After Eddie dies at the end of the play Beatrice and Catherine still love Eddie this creates pity for Eddie which outweighs all of Eddie’s errors of judgement.
In his final speech Alfieri says ‘I think I will love him more then all my sensible clients.’ He says this because he brought some excitement back into his life from the days in which the mafia were still working on the streets.
It is difficult to respect a character that would turn in a member of his family or forcefully kiss someone just to try to prove something. But, Alfieri helps us sympathise with him by showing us all of his thoughts which he couldn’t tell anyone else. Alfieri isn’t the only source of sympathy towards Eddie though. Another big reason you sympathise for Eddie is the fact that Beatrice and especially Catherine still loved him after everything he had done ‘Eddie, I never meant to do nothing bad to you.’
In the end I came to the conclusion that you can sympathise with Eddie as the fact that the people that were right in the centre of what happened could still love him, and if they can love him then we should be able to sympathise for him.
Conor Charles 10/4
