Catherine shows respect and love in a usual daughterly tactic by waiting for him at the window and patting his body but Eddie misjudges the gestures as being flirtatious towards him, which would explain why he is timid and delighted towards her.
Also in this chapter Eddie welcomes two illegal immigrants who are his wife’s cousins into his house, Marco and Rodolpho are Beatrice’s cousin who immigrated into America illegally.
Eddie and his family were living happily until he Eddie is faced with a situation, which he is unprepared for, his niece falls in love with Rodolpho a blonde handsome guy who was one of the illegal immigrants Eddie has invited into his house.
From the first moment they set eyes on each other they suddenly fall in love. Eddie quickly realizes what going on from the body language and the way both lovers interact with each other. Eddie who has unbearable affection and passionate feeling for his niece feels jealous of them and tries his best to break them up and after everything fails reports the two immigrants to the immigration which leads to his death. Arthur Miller used Alfieri a lawyer who also participates in the play and also narrates the chorus to the audience.
Which is rather strange? This shows his obsessive need to control her
He takes advantage of his role and abilities to protect Catherine from other men
After Eddie comes home from work Catherine tells her about her new job as a stenographer, he tells her she can’t have the job as a stenographer he says ‘‘why didn’t you ask me before you took a job?’’ this shows that he wants Catherine to ask for his permission before accepting the job. to protect her from other men ogling her. Eddie sees Catherine as an attractive person that he does not want her going out or wearing revealing clothes this is shown when he says “I think it’s too short” and he didn’t like the way she walked “now don’t aggravate me Katie you are walkin wavy” he probably didn’t like the way she walked because it probably got inappropriate attention. He protects Catherine from other men because he doesn’t want her to be happy with other men because in a way he thought Catherine was his. He doesn’t like the way she walks and dresses and that she is getting a job because all these things show that she is becoming a woman and He doesn’t like this, so he is motivated to protect her as much as possible.
When Eddie invites the two immigrants, Marco and Rodolpho into his house, as soon as Catherine sees Rodolfo she literally jumped at him. The two then fall in love and spend most of there times together, which makes Eddie really disappointed, he brought a young man into his house from which he cannot keep Catherine from, Now Eddie is faced with a challenge he tries everything to break them up and doesn’t want their relationship to develop. Another error in judgement that leads to his downfall is his self interest his selfishness makes him forget about how happy Catherine is with Rodolpho, all he cared about was to break them up, he confronts them about going out late at night and making excuses to stop the development of their relationship. He tells Rodolpho to stop singing “Paper Doll” to stop Catherine’s adoration of him. Eddie thinks Rodolpho is gay because Rodolpho sings, cooks and spends most of his time making clothes for Catherine, to prove this he challenges Rodolpho to boxing match so that he could demonstrate to Catherine that Rodolpho is gay and to warn Rodolpho to keep away from Catherine. As Eddie tries his best to break up Catherine and Rodolpho their relationship becomes stronger. Jealousy causes Eddie to doing outrageous and terrible things because he was jealous of Rodolfo and Catherine’s relationship, Eddie kisses Catherine and Rodolpho because he thinks that Rodolfo is gay and he thinks if he kisses Rodolfo, Catherine might realise that he is gay. He is jealous because he knows he can not have her so he try’s to make sure no one else can but he does not succeed. After everything fails he reports Rodolpho and Marco to immigration, which leads to Marco killing him.
To conclude this I think Eddie Carbone was a tragic hero because as the Greek philosopher stated “A tragic hero was one who moves from happiness to misery through some frailty or error in judgement.” Eddie was a good, hardworking and a respected man. His frailty is shown in his obsessive need to control his niece and his love affection for her. Things like this are bound to happen especially when you living without children of your own. His love affection for Catherine was also a natural thing because Eddie’s relationship with his wife was not working this because Catherine was doing all things that Beatrice was meant to do for her husband and they also haven’t had sex in long time. Overall I think that many things motivate Eddie but the most important thing is his secret desire for Catherine but he could never come to terms with the fact that he did not own her. I think this is also the error in his judgement and why he eventually died because he could not let go.
