“Eddie Carbone had never expected to have a destiny…Now as the weeks passed, there was a future, there was a trouble that would not go away”
Miller tells us how an ordinary man can be a protagonist and there is no need for him to be a King, general or great lover. Eddie expected to work, eat and go bowling for the rest of his life. We end the play not only seeing this one man’s tragedy, which hurt so many others, but we are also forced to think about our role “in the great scheme of things”. Miller is fascinated by how an ordinary individual’s life can have such tragedy. In this way he is similar to Thomas Hardy who although seemed to be a pessimistic was also interested in fate, destiny but also chance.
As previously mentioned Eddie is the centre of where all tension comes from and this is partly because he lets his emotions be known and when he does try to hide it he is poor at doing so. When he is angry those who are close by know it and his “touchy” nature is clear. It is clear by the way in which Catherine and Beatrice treat Eddie with such caution that he is easily irritated. Beatrice says,
“I’m just afraid if it don’t turn out good, you’ll be mad at me”
What she says gives the audience a feeling of what Eddie is like. The audience may not consciously acknowledge this quote but it will have an effect on them. When watching the play, one would initially despise the character of Eddie. He is foolish and stubborn which is an irritating combination. We find ourselves wanting to strangle him adding to the tension we feel. It is also a mark of how powerful Miller’s writing is.
A lot of Eddie’s actions in are due to Catherine. Catherine is his niece but their relationship is closer than that between a niece and her uncle. A niece is not in the bathroom when her uncle is in the bathroom “shaving in his pants”. Their relationship is more like that of a father and a daughter although a daughter shouldn’t be in the bathroom when her father is “shaving in his pants” also. Miller makes it clear in this book that Eddie’s feelings for Catherine are perhaps too strong and in danger of being a kind of love that is not supposed to be present between two people like this. The hints of incest are clear in the first act but become even more evident in the second act of the play. Eddie’s feelings for Catherine are the base of this play and his love for Catherine – as a daughter and perhaps as something more, are what ultimately kills him. The relationship between Eddie and Catherine are significant in how Miller makes the audience tense. Indeed most of the actions by characters here are done for love and Eddie is not the only one to fall foul of this. Catherine acts out of love for Rodolpho and Rodolpho seems to love her. The love Beatrice has for Eddie is at the heart of her problems and even Marco is acting out of love for his family in Italy.
We are immediately set upon with tension after Alfieri’s speech. When we are introduced to Eddie and Catherine. Catherine is showing off her new dress. Eddie does not like the dress as it is turning male heads at the docks. He does not like to see Catherine get so much so much attention from the men. He tells her she is walking “wavy” in a short dress on high heels. At this initial point in the play, their relationship seems open and sincere with no barriers but there is some uneasiness in the air. Catherine desperately craves Eddie’s approval (the text says she is almost in tears) and is clearly upset when he is criticising her. Catherine is sexually maturing and entering “teenagehood”. Eddie is losing control and this is something that is important to him. Catherine is not totally under his control any more and as she is growing up, she is gaining more and more freedom. Tension between the two and for the audience due to the two characters occurs next when there is talk about the job that Catherine wants to take on. This will of course mean more freedom and attention from men meaning that Eddie will see her less and have an even less effect on her. Beatrice and Catherine are noticeably nervous before telling Eddie about the job and his “touchy” nature is evident once again adding to the tension. It seems that Catherine is not yet a strong enough character to tell Eddie about her job alone and thus there is a need for Beatrice to help her. However Eddie responds by telling her that she should finish school. This is the act of a father who wants the best for his daughter. In actual fact, one of the compliments that he had paid earlier on was,
“You look like one of them girls that went to college.”
As the play goes on Eddie’s control over Catherine becomes looser and looser as she is growing up. The problems she has with Eddie becomes greater as we progress - the little squabbles about her clothing, then her job, and finally her boyfriend and eventual husband. There first major fight is over Rodolpho. There is significant part in Act One when Eddie bluntly asks Catherine if she likes Rodolpho. She simply answers, “Yeah, I like him”. This contains a rejection for Eddie and is what perhaps sparks the argument between the uncle and his niece.
Usually fights are an outlet for tension and are a release of suspense and uncomfortable feeling that the audience has been feeling. However in this particular play, Miller chooses to sustain the tension. All the character’s problems are linked to each other because of Eddie. Therefore the fight between Eddie and Catherine also maximises the tension between himself and the other family members – Rodolpho, Beatrice and eventually Marco. The more tension there is the play the more tension the audience feels because we the audience when watching play tap into the feelings and emotions of the characters and that is entertainment.
The argument over Rodolpho is very significant. It symbolises Catherine taking a huge and brave step to break free of Eddie. She finally breaks free in the final act when she once again lets go of her emotions and says what she feels. She finally makes her message clear to Eddie when she says,
“Who the hell do you think you are?…You got no more right to tell people nothin’!
We must ask ourselves what makes such a sweet and innocent girl be so defiant and rebellious? She feels that she is deeply in love with Rodolpho and this is definitely partly why she acts in such a way. She is also still relatively young and inexperience. She sees perhaps too much good in the world and this is evident in the text where Eddie is warning about her interaction with the men at the docks. The setting of the play is the late 1950s which was the beginning of “rock’n’roll” and the idea of the “teenager”. Youths at this time were beginning to want more freedom and rebel. They were starting to want to look cool in front of everyone. Catherine is starting to sexually mature and at her rebellious age, we the audience and Eddie senses that this is a dangerous combination, especially when the problem includes Rodolpho who although grows up during the course of the play is still also young and prone to a lack of thought habitually.
The relationship between these two characters gives the audience a lot of tension. Up to this point we have saw many of the faults of Eddie and his obsession with Catherine which is partly sexual. It is impossible to deny Eddie’s incestuous sexual desire for Catherine but during the play, does Catherine contribute to this. Throughout the play Catherine is in physical contact with Eddie on numerous occasions and it is he who is touching Eddie. She touches his arm many times and he always smiles, any member of the audience sensing Eddie’s incestuous feelings for Catherine will feel tension at these moments or at least discomfort. In Act One she also lights his cigarette to which he also smiles. Eddie smiles a lot around Catherine at the start of the play. When Catherine comes home from the pictures, Miller writes,
“he can’t help smiling at the sight of her”
The director can make these smiles as obvious as he wants or he may actually choose to exclude a few to make things subtler.
Subtlety is also important when looking at the tension in Act One. A lot of characters try to hide their true feelings sometimes – some more successful then others. For example, in Act One Beatrice speaks with “insistent force” and Catherine is embarrassed many times by Eddie and the audience knows that she is embarrassed. For example after Marco and Rodolpho have come, Eddie tells Catherine off about her high heels. The other characters will an also sense Catherine’s embarrassment which adds to the tension for all characters and the audience. The texts says,
“Embarrassed now, angered, Catherine goes out into the bedroom. Beatrice watches her go up and gets up; in passing, she gives Eddie a cold look, restrained only by the strangers, and goes to the table to pour coffee”.
Another example of Catherine’s increasingly rebellious nature is when she comes back from the pictures. Eddie questions her and she becomes angry and embarrassed (two powerful emotions combining) and so this time Eddie has to back off. Little moments like these help sustain the tension. The hidden nervousness of Catherine and Beatrice around Eddie also add to tension. Surprisingly Catherine also hides. Perhaps the best example of tension coming from the concealment of emotions is when Catherine and Rodolpho are dancing and Eddie has to sit in his “rocker” and put up with it. This has very significant and powerful symbolism which I have discussed in further detail later on.
By the end of Act One Eddie’s relationship with every person in the household has been strained, surprisingly also with Beatrice. His relationship with his wife is also right now very fragile and we know that an argument between this pair of characters could also happen at any time resulting in more tension. His problem with Beatrice also branch out from his problem with Catherine. Ultimately Beatrice is a loving woman. She loves her husband and her relatives and is in a very delicate position where she cannot back her husband or her relatives. I feel that overall her role is to suffer. Like Alfieri she cannot prevent the tragedy that she sensed might have happened. However, unlike Alfieri she is able to interfere. The problem is that her character is not strong enough. In Act Two she tells Eddie that he cannot have what he wants, he cannot have Catherine. However, by then she is too late, and the occurrences thereafter cannot be changed. She represents reason and sanity. She is involved in three of the tense moments in Act One. Firstly her private conversation with Catherine, then one with Eddie and during the argument in between Catherine and Eddie.
Beatrice can see Eddie’s infatuation with Catherine and tries to stop it in her own more subtle ways. She wants Catherine to move away and get her job and she indirectly tries to stop his obsession with Catherine when saying,
“What’re you gonna stand over her till she’s forty?”
She combines subtle hints with Eddie with her conversation Catherine to try and prevent the tragedy. Her conversation with Catherine is another one of the tense moments in this first act. She talks to Catherine about her behaviour around Eddie. Beatrice tells her to stop being so close to Eddie (e.g. being in the bathroom when Eddie is shaving in his pants). You can imagine how this conversation could be acted out on stage or even on film – it would be very tense and there would be silence. Beatrice knows that this is a very delicate topic and she would be walking on a tightrope as would the emotions of the audience be. All these tense moments really do add up to sustain the tension which comes to a climax at the end of Act One.
Beatrice’s conversation with Eddie has different content to the one she had with Catherine but the type of conversation is very similar – very sensitive and delicate. Moreover, it deals with sex which would not have been spoken about as freely as now in them times. She asks Eddie,
“When am I gonna be a wife again Eddie?”
She is clearly asking about sex and it is something they have not had for three months. Eddie tries to blame it on Marco and Rodolpho by saying he has not been feeling good due to them but then Beatrice’s riposte is that they had only been in the country for a few weeks. The tension is too great here for Eddie and so he leaves because he cannot face up to the truth. So why have sexual relations halted? Is it because of Beatrice herself or is it his desire for Catherine that is making him not in the mood to make love with Beatrice. Perhaps he is really not feeling to good.
The director depending on how he or she chooses to play the coming of Rodolpho and Marco can add another moment of tension. The director could choose to make there journey from the boat very tense and dramatic as people stare at them. I would probably not choose to play there arrival in this way as I would want to keep the focus on the Carbone household. Also, a community like this probably would see illegal immigrants all the time.
Eddie’s relationship with Rodolpho due is due to his relationship with his niece. Rodolpho has blond hair that is perhaps a sigh of his innocence. Perhaps Eddie would have liked him if he did not have such incestuous feelings for Catherine. It is clear however that Eddie immediately does not like Rodolpho. He sees Rodolpho as a “weird” who is young, boastful and a person who is contributing to the destruction of his relationship with Catherine. In contrast, Catherine immediately takes a fancy to Rodolpho and asks him to sing to her.
Eddie says that Rodolpho gives him the “heebie jeebies” and calls him a “weird”. Rodolpho is obviously a very talented person, he can sing, cook and make clothes. To Eddie this is not normal and rather feministic. During Eddie’s conversation with Alfieri, Rodolpho’s sexuality is then questioned. The issues of incest and homosexuality have now been touched – two sensitive topics which cause tension and discomfort.
When Eddie speaks to Mike and Louis about Rodolpho, he feels that their remarks which are intended as complements are more insults. He feels that Rodolpho is losing the honour of his family and honour is another important theme.
One of the most tense moments is when Catherine and Rodolpho dance in front of Eddie. Eddie is said “to freeze”. However he must hold his anger inside him as if he does not, relationships with the whole household will be permanenty damaged and he would end up the fool. The dancing has great importance. It symbolises how Catherine and Rodolpho’s relationship is now closer than that between Catherine’s and Eddie’s. It also symbolises Catherine’s independence. The dancing is an act of revolt. The song which they choose – Paper Doll is also perhaps significant and would definitely have an effect on Eddie.
“I’ll tell you boys it’s tough to be alone,
And it’s tough to love a doll that’s not your own.
I’m gonna buy a paper doll that I can call my own,
A doll that other fellows cannot steal”
Eddie is enraged and the stage directions are crucial here – especially to the reader who has to visualise what is going on.
“He has bent the rolled paper (newspaper) and it suddenly tears in two “
The dance is part of a sequence of tenses moments. It precedes the boxing and the lifting of the chair.
Even by the end of Act One we can see Rodolpho has grown up. He is less boastful and refuses to dance in front of Eddie for the first time. He then agrees to participate in a “boxing lesson”. After the boxing lessons, Eddie is now shown by Miller to be a very childish person. The boxing lesson shows that Eddie is stronger than Rodolpho. However, little doe Eddie know that immediately after there would be another trial of strength which he would lose. Eddie is using this “lesson” as an outlet of his anger. He is getting rid of all the angry emotions he has been holding inside on Eddie. The first trial of strength between Rodolpho and Eddie is full of tension. The tension here is shown through the reaction of others. After Beatrice’s initial alarm she sees it as friendly rivalry and lets the lesson go on. Catherine is also very fearful for Rodolpho’s safety and Marco also eventually rises when he sees that his brother has been hurt. Up to this point Marco has agreed with Eddie on all points. When Eddie told Rodolpho to come home earlier, Marco agreed. However, not Marco is showing that family is more important and the themes honour and family are once again present. Family loyalty is greater than his concern not to irritate his benefactor. Rodolpho denies that eddie hurt him (“with a certain gleam and a smile”) and moves to his own more subtle act of defiance – dancing with Catherine again, he invites her to dance this time.
The last trial of strength is between Eddie and Marco. Marco challenges Eddie to lift the chair by the leg. Eddie is unable to but Marco succeeds. Seeing who wins this test of strength is also a great moment of strength for the audience. We know that there will be a great difference in what happens next depending on who wins the battle. Marco lifts the chair over his head, like a “weapon” and Eddie knows that he is losing his power in the family and his influence over everybody is rapidly diminishing. Marco lives his life to the strict code of the community. Generally he is a good person who always tries to do what is right. For Marco, actions speak louder than words and this is clearly present in the lifting of the chair. In Marco, Miller has managed to create a killer whom we see as good and honourable. The lifting of the chair is without the climax of Act One. It is positioned at the end of the Act before the interval and sets up the second act brilliantly. In Shakespeare, the staging directions are few and directors can choose to putintevals at different places. However, this play by Miller has many staging directions many of which are incredibly important. The interval must come right at the end of the raising of the chair – the climax of all emotions, not just tension.
In Alfieri’s opening speech he says,
“Now we settle for half, and I like it better.”
This sentiment is repeated in his last speech it is well worth noting. The quote above is about just accepting what you have instead of wanting more. The tragedy could have been avoided if Eddie was content with what he had and not wanted Catherine. If only Eddie had accepted the terrible deeds that he had done and not demand an apology and “his name back”. The quote is telling us to compromise and be pleased with what we have been lucky enough to have.
In Act 1 the author sustains tension. As we progress the little household tensions slowly develop to become much greater ones which are all linked. More the little conversations which are frequent also help to sustain the tension. At the end of Act one the tensions come to a head and the final act is set up perfectly for the audience to enjoy after the interval. I think that Act One shows the great quality of this particular playwright. He knows when to be subtle and when not to and this enables him to control how and when we feel what we feel. I fell that the first Act is what makes this Act so good and also the well-written dramatic ending making this play very successful.