Later, as Catherine is attracted to Rodolpho, Eddie tries to discredit his rival: he first implies that Rodolpho is not serious, merely in search of American citizenship. When this fails he comes to believe that Rodolpho is a homosexual, and tries to show up his lack of manliness. The failure of this in turn causes him to betray Rodolpho and Marco, a futile gesture, as Rodolpho is allowed to stay. Indeed, his marriage to Catherine is brought forward to secure his staying in the country. Marco's accusation of Eddie leads him, in the latter stages of the play, to an impossible effort to recover his good name in the community. In his doomed attempt to force Marco to take back his accusation, Eddie dies.
Eddie will seek to discredit any rival. In Rodolpho's case, he quickly finds a "reason" for this. Rodolpho is slightly built, blond, a good singer and dancer, and he can cook and make dresses. Moreover, Mike and Louis seem to share this view: "He comes around, everybody's laughin'" says Mike. The stage directions indicate seven times that Mike and Louis laugh; finally, they "explode in laughter". After this, Eddie abuses his trust as a wise father figure to persuade Catherine that Rodolpho is a "hit-and-run guy" and "only bowin' to his passport". She protests disbelief but is clearly shaken until Beatrice reassures her.
Eddie tells Alfieri of Rodolpho, that "he ain't right", and that "you could kiss him, he was so sweet", but Alfieri advises him that there is nothing he can do.
The second act opens with an episode, which relies equally on the stage action, as the drunken Eddie kisses both Catherine (to show her how a "real man" kisses) and Rodolpho (partly to show Catherine that he enjoys it, and that his failure to resist it is significant; partly, just to humiliate Rodolpho). The first kiss (which is near-incestuous) and the second (because a man kisses another) will repel the audience.
In 1955, when the play was first performed, the double kiss would have been utterly shocking. Eddie has lost the audience's sympathy, and loses it yet further when he calls the immigration authorities. We see how the phone booth gradually lights up, symbolizing the triumph of Eddie's desperation over his conscience.
Earlier in the play, Eddie has told the story of Vinnie Bolzano, precisely to show us his belief in loyalty to family and community. There is also irony in Eddie's doing exactly the same thing of which he has spoken with such horror. Eddie has warned Catherine "you can quicker get back a million dollars that was stole than a word that you gave away". Now he find this to be true: his feigned horror on finding the Liparis have relatives sharing with Marco and Rodolpho, and his suggestion that they are being tracked, coming just before the immigration officers arrive, is a giveaway. Eddie tries to outface Marco, but the accusation is believed. Lipari and his wife, Louis and Mike, the stage representatives of the wider community, one by one leave Eddie alone, symbolizing his isolation.
The climax of the play is like the "showdown" at the end of a western. Marco is coming to punish Eddie; Eddie in return will demand his "name" back. Marco believes it is dishonourable to let Eddie live, but has given his word not to kill him. Eddie's pulling a knife means that Marco can see justice done, while keeping his word. Again the action is symbolic of the play's deeper meaning. Eddie literally dies by his own hand, which holds the knife, and is killed by his own weapon; but Eddie also metaphorically destroys himself, over the whole course of the play. And this is what Alfieri introduces to at the play's opening: the sight of a man destroying himself, while those around him are as powerless as a theatre audience to prevent it.
We have considered Eddie in terms of what he does and says, but we should also consider how we are meant, finally, to see him.
Alfieri's speeches generally explain Eddie's actions and Alfieri's own inability to save him. But his last speech tries to explain the mystery of Eddie's character. Most of us, says Alfieri, are "civilized", "American" rather than Sicilian. Most of us "settle for half", and this has to be a good thing. (He has earlier told us with relief of the passing of the gangster era, and that he no longer keeps a loaded gun in his filing cabinet). But although Eddie's death was "useless", yet "something perversely pure calls to [Alfieri] from his memory - not purely good, but himself purely, for he allowed himself to be wholly known". Most of us, says Alfieri, being more educated, more sophisticated, more in control, can either hide our feelings or, better, overcome them.
Eddie is a suitable subject for a modern tragedy because the potential for self-destruction, which is in all of us, in Eddie's case has destroyed him. And apart from this improper love, Eddie is a good man; and this love has its origin in the quite proper love of father for child, and Eddie's sense of duty to his family and community. This is shown in the early part of the play in the love and trust Catherine and Beatrice have for Eddie, and of what we learn of his hustling for work when Catherine was a baby. Eddie is a very ordinary man, a decent and well-liked man, and yet the one flaw in his character forces those around him and Alfieri to watch "powerless" (as does the audience) as the case runs "its bloody course".
After Eddie, Alfieri's is probably the most important role in the play. He is, of course, in some (not much) of the action, as Eddie consults him. This is essential, as it explains how he has come to know the story. Miller has said that he wanted to make this play a modern equivalent of classical Greek tragedy. In the ancient plays, an essential part was that of the chorus: a group of figures who would watch the action, comment on it, and address the audience directly.
In A View from the Bridge, Alfieri is the equivalent of the chorus. He introduces the action as a retelling of events already in the (recent) past. By giving details of place, date or time, he enables the action to move swiftly from one episode to another, without the characters having to give this information. This is often skilfully mixed with brief comment: "He was as good a man as he had to be...he brought home his pay, and he lived. And toward ten o'clock of that night, after they had eaten, the cousins came". Because much of this is fact, we believe the part, which is opinion.
We also trust a lawyer to be a good judge of character and rational, because he is professionally detached. Alfieri is not quite detached, however. His connection with Eddie is slight: "I had represented his father in an accident case some years before, and I was acquainted with the family in a casual way". But in the next interlude, Alfieri tells us how he is so disturbed, that he consults a wise old woman, who tells him to pray for Eddie. You should consider what Alfieri says in each of the interludes, and you must be able to find them quickly.
In the brief scenes in which Alfieri speaks to Eddie, we gain an insight into his idea of settling for half. He repeatedly tells Eddie that he should not interfere, but let Catherine go, "and bless her", that the only legal question is how the brothers entered the country "But I don't think you want to do anything about that".
As Eddie contemplates the betrayal, Alfieri reads his mind and repeatedly warns him: "You won't have a friend in the world...Put it out of your mind".
Alfieri as the chorus/narrator need never leave the stage. Stage directions refer not to exits and entrances but to the light going down or coming up on Alfieri at his desk, as we switch from the extended bouts of action (flashbacks to Alfieri) to the interludes which allow him to comment, to move forward in time, and give brief indications of circumstantial detail, such as the source of the whisky Eddie brings home at the start of Act Two. Alfieri's view is also the "view from the bridge" of the title. To those around Eddie, those "on the water front", the events depicted are immediate, passionate and confused. But the audience has an ambiguous view. In the extended episodes of action we may forget, as Marco lifts the chair, or as Eddie kisses Rodolpho, that Alfieri is narrating. What we see is theatrical and exciting; we are involved as spectators. But at the end of the episode, as the light goes up on Alfieri, we are challenged to make a judgement. If Eddie, as we see him, appeals to our hearts, Alfieri makes sure we also judge with our heads.
The device of depicting Italian and Sicilian immigrants enables Miller to make them more or less articulate in English. Only Alfieri is a properly articulate, educated speaker of American English: for this reason he can explain Eddie's actions to us, but not to Eddie, who does not really speak his language. Eddie uses a naturalistic Brooklyn slang ("quicker" for "more quickly", "stole" for "stolen" and so on). His speech is simple, but at the start of the play is more colourful, as he tells Catherine she is "walkin' wavy" and as he calls her "Madonna".
In Episode 10, Beatrice is torn between loyalty to Catherine, whose wedding she feels a duty to attend, and to Eddie. She wishes to stand by Eddie, as all others have deserted him. Catherine calls him a "rat", which bites and poisons and belongs in the garbage, but she is weeping as she says it. Rodolpho comes to warn Eddie of his brother's approach and vengeful intention, and also to propose a reconciliation. Moved by generosity (and perhaps an understanding that his bride still loves Eddie) Rodolpho proposes a solution. He apologizes to Eddie and suggests that Marco may be placated if he can believe that Eddie and Rodolpho are friends now.
But Eddie has no interest in this offer. He calls Rodolpho "a punk" and "kid". What he wants is his name, and only Marco, who has taken it, can return it. What he is asking is an impossibility. Earlier, speaking of Vinny Bolzano, Eddie has said that you can more easily retrieve a million dollars "that was stole than a word that you gave away".
Now Beatrice suggests that what Eddie really wants is something quite different, but just as obviously unattainable: "You want somethin' else...and you can never have her!" Eddie cannot admit this, but is driven by Beatrice's remark to a display of defiance. He demands that Marco retract his accusation and restore to him his good name and status in the community, without which his life is of no value. Marco calls Eddie an "animal" and strikes him, at which Eddie pulls a knife on him. Marco seizes Eddie's arm as he lunges with the knife, and turns it back on him.
In this short episode we see the whole play recapitulated in some ways, as Eddie confronts in turn Beatrice, Catherine, Rodolpho, Beatrice again and Marco. The two women support Eddie as he dies. His own hand, an obvious metaphor for his self-destruction, kills him. All that remains is for Alfieri to explain how Eddie "allowed himself to be wholly known".
I believe that the prose has a beautiful emotional almost poetic side. Through careful direction, Miller manages to play his audience with the skilfulness of a master; we become immersed into the character Eddie Carbone’s dangerous world of the New York docks. I am genuinely moved as I see the gradual downfall of Eddie. I loved the play, it was honest and emotional, shocking at times but overall I enjoyed it tremendously. Miller was so detailed in his stage directions because this is his message to the audience and he did not want it to misinterpreted. “We settle for half and I like it better” ends this fantastic play.
