He gives several reasons but eventually gives in to the idea to make Catherine happy.
Lastly there is the relationship between Catherine and Beatrice, the aunty and the niece. At the beginning of the play Beatrice stands up for Catherine a lot; when Eddie says she can’t have a job she argues with him for Catherine’s sake:
“(with sympathy but insistent force) Well, I don’t understand when it ends. First it was gonna be when she graduated high school, so she graduated high school. The it was when she learned stenographer, so she learned stenographer. So what’re we gonna wait for now? I mean it, Eddie, sometimes I don’t understand you; they picked her out of the whole class, it’s an honour for her.”
Even though Catherine isn’t present right then Beatrice is sticking up for her so that she can do what she wants to do; work. Also Beatrice is aware of the sexual tension between her husband, Eddie, and her niece, Catherine, and gradually her loyalty shifts to her husband when she realises that he is becoming isolated. Once her cousin’s arrive Catherine is more interested in Rodolfo so Eddie is feeling left out, unwanted and isolated.
‘A view from the bridge’ has its roots in the late 1940s, this is shown by the speech that they use, the names that they give to certain professions and how they address things. In this particular place, Brooklyn; New York, there were a lot of people who were poorly paid, exploited by their bosses and who were in many cases only recent immigrants to the United States, having come to America in hope of the work, wealth and security that their home countries could not guarantee; such as Beatrice’s cousins. The Carbones’ living and dining room is the focus of the action; this may be due to the space in the house, quite small, cramped which meant that they would be in each other’s faces all the time. At the beginning of the play there isn’t much space as it is and now that they are expecting two of Beatrice’s cousins it will be a little more pressured. Less space will be available for the family and they will have to learn to get along with each other much better then before because of the space available when the cousins come. Also the main action is placed in the living room always. It is sort of the centre of attention in the play, all the important scenes are set in here, most of them anyway, some other scenes are set out in the street showing the public side of the Carbones’ position in the community, which is important in this play as we see near the end.
There is a lot to take in when talking about the background of the Italian/American community, from the following discussion we can tell that the background of this Red Hook community is not one to mess with that there is a general mistrust of authority, especially the police and that informers are dealt with severely:
EDDIE: “I don’t care what questions it is. You – don’t – know – nothin’. They got stool pigeons all over this neighbourhood they’re payin’ them every week for information, and you don’t know who they are. It could be your best friend. You hear? (To BEATRICE) Like Vinny Bolzano, remember Vinny?
Beatrice goes on to describe how the community punished a boy who informed on his own uncle:
“Oh, it was terrible. He had five brothers and the old father. And they grabbed him in the kitchen and pulled him down the stairs – three flights his head was bouncin’ like a coconut. And they spit on him in the street, his own father and his brothers. The whole neighbourhood was cryin’.
This story shows how the informer was disgraced, by his very own family, in front of the whole neighbourhood. The Italian/American community is all about family, trust and justice. Alfieri comes into the first act at the beginning he acts as a narrator throughout the whole play coming in through scenes and explaining to the audience what has happened, basically analysing the scenes. Miller uses Alfieri as a connection to the audience; conveys his own feelings and thoughts to the audience through the character of the lawyer, Alfieri.
“…I am inclined to notice the ruins in things, perhaps because I was born in Italy … I only came here when I was twenty-five. In those days, Al Capone, the greatest Carthaginian of all, was learning his trade on these pavements, and Frankie Yale himself was cut precisely in half by a machine gun on the corner of Union Street, two blocks away. Oh, there were many here who were justly shot by unjust men.
Justice is very important here.”
Here he is trying to tell the audience that people sort out their own business in Red Hook and that they don’t go through the legal procedures that are usually carried out, through lawyers, courts they head straight for the action and sort their business by themselves. This serves as another warning to the audience of what is to come.
Things within the Carbone family are about to take a major change for the worse as the arrival of Beatrice’s cousins. This is because of the facts that are set out for you before the cousins actually arrive; firstly there is the opening speech that Alfieri makes at the beginning of the play and Alfieri’s hint at the action rolling on taking its own “bloody course”.
If we look at the three main characters in a more detailed way then maybe we would be able to decide whether what Beatrice said was true and whether we agree with her or not. The three main characters are obviously the members of the Carbone family; Eddie, Beatrice and Catherine. Eddie a caring man described by Alfieri:
“He was as good a man as he had to be in a life that was hard and even. He worked on the piers when there was work, he brought home his pay, and he lived. …”
Through the course of the play you will; see that there is a major change in the way Eddie and Beatrice’s relationship develops and Eddie and Catherine’s as well – basically all the relationships within the Carbone family become distant and broken to an extent. Eddie grows apart from Beatrice, more then he was at the beginning of the play, prompting her question:
“When am I gonna be a wife again, Eddie?”
EDDIE: I ain’t been feelin’ good. They bother me since they came.
BEATRICE: It’s almost three months you don’t feel good; they’re only here a couple of weeks. It’s three months Eddie.
EDDIE:I don’t know, B. I don’t want to talk about it.
BEATRICE: What’s the matter, Eddie, you don’t like me, heh?
EDDIE: What do you mean, I don’t like you? I said I don’t feel good, that’s all.
BEATRICE: Well, tell me, am I doing something wrong? Talk to me.
EDDIE: (Pause. He can’t speak, then) I can’t. I can’t talk about it.
BEATRICE: Well tell me what –
EDDIE: I got nothin’ to say about it!”
Here you can see that they are going through a tough situation, Beatrice feels as if she is being ignored by Eddie. Eddie doesn’t feel like talking to Beatrice about it, at this point he is concerned about Catherine and her relationship with Rodolfo. He is concerned about her; Beatrice sees this in another way though. Eddie doesn’t seem to be aware of his attraction to Catherine. His obsession is something he is not able to recognize or understand for himself.
Beatrice has many good points, as Miller has pointed out, she has a bond with Catherine as a friend as well as an aunt. She and Catherine get along well, but her attitude becomes more assertive when Beatrice becomes aware of a deeper more disturbing reason for Eddie’s protectiveness towards Catherine. This disturbs Beatrice and she confronts Eddie but he has nothing to say about it. She is worried about what is going to happen as she can see what is going to happen, as the relationship between Catherine and Rodolfo is getting deeper and the fact that they are thinking of marriage. Beatrice tries to make Eddie understand what she can see and what his actions are implying. Beatrice soon is getting fed up of Eddie’s actions and his attitude towards her and has to confront him head on, She soon realises what she has to say to Eddie,
“… somethin’ else, Eddie, and you can never have her!”
She also feels that Eddie isn’t acting like her husband any more, the physical, sexual part of the Carbones’ marriage has broken down and, despite that she had challenged Eddie over this, she was unable to make him face why this might be, let alone make him admit his weakness to himself, and she remains powerless as a result. Moreover, when she confronts him and receives no affection back; he isn’t prepared to talk to her about his feelings.
Lastly there’s Catherine who is naïve as to what’s going on around her, she hardly notices that Eddie and Beatrice aren’t as close as before. Yet she does attempt to blame Beatrice for lack of understanding:
“Then why don’t she be a woman? If I was a wife I would make a man happy instead of goin’ at him all the time. I can tell a block away when he’s blue in his mind and just wants to talk to somebody quiet and nice … I can tell when he’s hungry or wants a beer before he even says anything. I know when his feet hurt him, I mean I know him and now I’m supposed to turn around and make a stranger out of him? I don’t know why I have to do that, I mean.”
Here she tries to explain that she understands Eddie better than his wife Beatrice. Plus the fact that she can’t just turn around and make him a stranger out of nowhere. This shows her naïveté – because she doesn’t realise that she herself is the problem between Beatrice and Eddies. In the end Beatrice has to confront Catherine head on and make her see how her behaviour is encouraging the wrong feelings in Eddies:
“It means you gotta be your own self more. You still think you’re a little girl, honey. But nobody else can make up your mind for you any more, you understand? You gotta give him to understand that he can’t give you orders no more.
CATHERINE: Yea, but how am I going to do that? He thinks I’m a baby.
BEATRICE: Because you think you’re a baby. I told you fifty times already, you can’t act the way you act. You still walk around in front of him in your slip –“
Catherine doesn’t realise that her actions are partly to blame for Eddie’s inappropriate interest in her:
BEATRICE: I know, honey. But if you act like a baby and he be treatin’ you like a baby. Like when he comes home sometimes you throw yourself at him when you was twelve years old.
Beatrice tries to make her realise she must take responsibility for her actions:
“Because it ain’t only up to him, Katie, you understand? I told him the same thing already.”
Catherine is just coming to terms with the fact that she has to let go of her past and that she does things that she doesn’t realise the effects of.
Eddie, Beatrice and Catherine are each to blame for what happens because they were all a part of it and they all influenced how it turned out in the end. They had free will and that let them decide how they were going to act. Their actions are their own, not anyone else’s so what steps they took they have to account for because no one can make you do something you don’t want to do. No matter how small or large their part was in how everything turned out they were still a part of it in one way or another. Marco and Rodolfo also have a part in how everything turns out; if Rodolfo hadn’t been there then everything in the Carbone family would be all in one piece, a little dysfunctional yet still in one piece. Plus if Marco hadn’t been there then Eddie would still be alive, because the only reason he died was the fact that Marco came to take his revenge, even though you can argue that it was self-defence. All in all everyone contributes to what takes place whether it be a small or a big part; they still took part and are to blame.
The character of Alfieri is used as a narrator in this play, he comes in at key stages in the play and the fact that he is telling the story as well as being a character in the play makes it a bit more dramatic because he knows exactly what is going to happen yet we only have a little bit of an idea through what he says. Alfieri is talking about the Sicilian code of honour and the importance of having a good name in the community because he knows that something horrible is going to happen and is letting us into a few minor details so that we are left guessing what is going to happen. Eddie goes to him for help at key points in the play so that Miller can put across his opinion on what is going on and how things are going to take a turn for the worst for everyone. Miller shows sympathy for Eddie through the character of Alfieri:
“Most of the time now we settle for half and I like it better. But the truth is holy, and even as I know how wrong he was, and his death useless, I tremble, for I confess something perversely pure calls to me from his memory - not purely good, but himself purely, for he allowed himself not to be wholly known and for that I think I would love him more then all my sensible clients. And yet, it is better to settle for half, it must be! And so I mourn him – I admit it – with a certain … alarm.”
Now going back to the original question, I think that Beatrice is right to an extent about what she says; every one of the characters has a part to play in the ending of the play. She is right in saying that they all belong in the garbage because they all had a choice of doing what they did and not doing it so you can’t really say they were forced to do it because they weren’t.
Meshaal Ihtasham
10L
