As the play progresses you see problems starting to arise between the family as Eddie is involved in small conflicts with the rest of the family. This causes a lot of friction as Eddie constantly moans about the way Rodolpho only wants to marry Catherine to get a work permit and become a US citizen and Catherine. Another small conflict which grows into the eventual death of Eddie is the constant calling of Rodolpho ‘unmanly’. This grows into a large scale event when Eddie tries and stops him and Catherine from being together. Also another conflict over nothing is when Eddie complains about Catherine’s dress sense like her small skirts, and treats her as she is still a young girl not a young woman who has nearly finished school. These small conflicts cause much more problems later in the play.
One of the major issues in the play is that Rodolpho does not conform to Eddie’s sense of Manliness, this is show when he says “And with that wacky hair like he’s a chorus girl” shows Eddie dislikes his hair and he sings. This is important and is the cause of all the problems in the play. Eddie thinks that because Rodolpho wants to see the lights of Broadway and dances, sings and sews at home that he is not manly. This is a wrong view because Rodolpho only went to America to work not to do all these other things. This shows that Eddie is not very good at picking up other peoples feelings or the way they do things. This is cause because he is not very well educated and as he works at the docks he only respects men with muscles, this is shown when he says “he’s a cook, too, He sings, He cooks” shows that Eddie cannot do these and as they are not manly he thinks badly of them. Also Rodolpho has blonde hair which makes Eddie think he is more feminine than he is. This causes the main conflict with ends with Eddie’s death and Marco being sent back to Italy to his starving wife and children.
The major weakness of Eddie is that he is not very articulate but makes up for it in strength. Throughout the play he shows this, like having to solve everything with arguments and inciting violence in Rodolpho (when they are boxing) and trying to fight Marco when he is called names. This makes Eddie a very vulnerable character in the play, but one of the main causes of trouble for all the other family members. Because of his low intellect everything must be physical for Eddie and he cannot understand why people like Rodolpho are not so physical and why Catherine wants to have a job and not end school. This is the main cause of a lot of the problems combined with his view of manliness which makes the events of the play go the way they go.
The role of females in this play is to try and prove they have the same rights at the men in some cases. This is shown when Catherine refuses to do what Eddie tells her to. This makes more drama from Catherine, whereas Beatrice tries her hardest to keep a more uneven peace. They try to keep the events of the play going. It is Catherine’s unwillingness to do anything that Eddie says makes a lot of drama in the family and causes a lot of friction between a lot of the characters, this is shown when she says “I don’t want to hear it” showing she does not want to hear Eddies point of view. They also try and keep a peace between members of the family and they also escalate some of the events by trying to dismiss Eddies ‘authority’.
The role of Alfieri in the play is to be a narrator and act as a person to set the scene and tell you the events which happen while scenes are changing. This is important because it tells you what it going on offstage. Also the is a influence of ancient Greek tragedies where he acts as the chorus who tells the crowd of the events in the play. This is an important role to play and he also acts as a neutral person in the play who is slightly sympathetic towards Eddie and is one of the few characters who is.
The language in the play is that of a typical New York Italian American family living in the suburbs and the words would be said in a new Yorker way. Words such as “sump’m?” and “didja” show this New Yorker way. Another thing to notice is the use of apostrophes in this play; this is shown by “lookin’” and “nothin’”. Also there is a lot of anger in this play which is shown in the text at parts of the play when some characters are angry, annoyed or trying to express themselves. The words in the play are also shown that characters like Eddie can’t express themselves too well and there words show this. It makes the characters sound more angry if they say words in a certain way and it makes the whole play much better.
The play expresses the feelings of manliness very well in the form of Eddies conflict with Rodolpho, Catherine and later Marco. It shows the feelings of aggression very well in the numerous moments of friction and arguments. It also shows how even members of the same family can be hostile to each other when provoked like Eddie is, and Marco is when he kills Eddie. This play is very interesting and shows all sides of problems in a family and how people should be wide minded unlike Eddie is.
