To discuss if Eddie Carbone brings fate upon himself, we must also know the meaning of fate. The description of fate is an event or a course of events that will inevitably happen in the future. The fate is brought upon us by a series of certain circumstances called our destinies.
From the beginning of the play we can see that Eddie’ s affection towards Catherine is very unusual, “ for a powerful emotion is on him, a childish one and a knowing fear, and the tears show in his eyes_”.
While Catherine’s love for Eddie, is innocent affection of a daughter for a father.
Eddie is also very overprotective towards her, assuming that she is still a kid,
“ I never figured on one thing…. That you would ever grow up.”
It can be seen by the way he reacts when he first hears about Catherine’s job,
“you can’t take no job”.
We also see that Catherine doesn’t like this attitude, “ almost in tears because he disapproves”. In the beginning, Catherine both cares and respects his opinion as she regards him as a father or guardian.
There are also some particular events that show that love between them is not normal. For example, when Catherine waves to Eddie, he is delighted by it and his mode turns to genuinely protected towards Catherine. It is then further assured, when Eddie praises Catherine’s skirt, “Turn around, lemme see in the back.” This possibly warm and affectionate act between niece and uncle has phallic suggestions.
Further in the novel, both Rodolpho and Catherine spend a lot of time in each other’s company. And we can see, Eddie is jealous of the time; Rodolpho gets to spend with Catherine. Even in the initial stage of the play we can see that Eddie disapproves Rodolpho.
‘that’s a nice kid? He gives me heeby-jeebies’
To stop her niece developing any feelings for Rodolfo, Eddie tells her that he just wants to marry her to become an American citizen, “he is only bowin’ to his passport”. But she doesn’t heed him.
Rodolpho develops a reputation at the docks for being quite a joker, which makes Eddie further frustrated and embarrassed.
Beatrice becomes more and more aware of the attention that Eddie gives to Catherine. She advises Catherine to grow up, become a woman and make her own decisions. She promotes Catherine to get married to Rodolpho if that is what she has in mind.
Beatrice is the first one, who actually confirms reader’s views about Eddie’s unusual love towards his niece,
“You want somethin' else, Eddie, and you can never have her!”
Until this moment, no one has directly spoken about Eddie's feelings for Catherine. Although they are obviously known by Beatrice and Alfieri, (the narrator of the story), no one has dared to actually tell Eddie what is wrong with him. But even when Eddie realise that his actual problem is his love towards his neice, he is powerless to hold back.
Alfieri himself narrates that Eddie is possessed with, "passion that has moved into his body, like a stranger," and was unable to control it. The passion that Alfieri describes is the mania for his niece Catherine.
Eddie, still perplexed with Rodolpho and Catherine, even visits Alfieri and asks if there is any way he can get rid of Rodolpho legally, but Alfieri assures him there is none. Alfieri suggests Eddie to let Catherine go,
“the child has to grow up and go away.”
In the end of the act one, Eddie boosts his strength against Rodolpho by starting a pretend boxing match. Catherine And Beatrice quickly stops this match, “that’s enough”. And for the first time Marco, who has been the silent personality right through the whole play challenges Eddie to lift a chair. Eddie fails to lift the chair after several attempts, while Marco does it readily. The chair is said to be “raised like weapon over Eddie’s head.” By this scene Marco gives a message to Eddie that he is not a person whom he can take lightly. This scene probably confirms the suspicions of their enmity, which we see later in the play, becoming bloody.
The situation exaggerates and and Eddie becomes more increasingly jealous of Rodolpho. Eddie again tries to win his niece by saying that Rodolpho is homosexual, “ He sings, he cooks….”. He repeatedly tells Catherine “the guy ain’t right”, but to no avail. This opinion has not only just been made clear once. Throughout the play we see Eddie making comments to other characters about Rodolfo's sexual orientation, such as when he is fussing about how late Catherine and Rodolfo's date has taken, he says to Beatrice that he,
"just hope[s] that's his regular hair, that's all".
In section two, Rodolpho and Catherine are left alone in the house and have sex in the bedroom. As they are exiting the bedroom, Eddie comes home drunk. He fiercely kisses Catherine, pins Rodolpho to the floor and kisses him also. Eddie perhaps kisses him to exhibit to Catherine that Rodolpho is a gay or to raise his strength over him.
Eddie visits Alfieri once again, who repeatedly insists to let Catherine go. Instantly after leaving Alfieri's office, Eddie calls the Immigration Bureau and reports Marco and Rodolpho. Officers come and arrest Marco and Rodolpho. As he is being taken away, Marco spits in Rodolpho's face. Alfieri pays bail for the two men and stages the marriage of Catherine and Rodolpho. On the wedding day, Marco returns to the house seeking revenge. He feels that justice need to be brought on him as Eddie "killed his children". While Marco believes that he can win back his lost respect. Eddie lurches into Marco with a knife. Marco turns Eddie's arm and kills Eddie with Eddie's own knife, and he dies in Beatrice's arms.
Eddie looses control of his actions in the play, due to the excessive love for his niece. Eddie resorts to desperate measures to protect his identity and name in the community. This shows that Eddie is possessed by fate, as Alfieri says:
“I knew where he was heading for, I knew where he was going to end”.
Eddie does not actually realize his feeling for Catherine because he has alternatively made an imaginary world to exist with in, and to hide his feelings. This is the thing, which actually destroys Eddie’s true inner self, and causes him to act out of character. As he has no outlet for his feelings and emotions—even in his own conscious mind—Eddie transfers his energy to hatred towards Marco and Rodolpho, which causes him to act completely irrationally. Eddie's final need to secure or regain his good name from Marco is a result of Eddie's failure to protect Catherine from Rodolpho. Eddie fails in his life, but seeks salvation and victory in death. By avenging Marco, Eddie believes he will regain his pride in the community—another entirely self-interested act. Eddie escaped restraint because he got away by all thoughts of other people or the community at large. Eddie's "wholeness" is a whole interest in him. Eddie’s tragic defect is the constructed world he exists within, but is unable to escape or realise.
His “wholeness” is a thing that even Alfieri respects, as when he says:
“he allowed himself to be wholly known and for that I think I will love him”
But Alfieri also describes that you cannot always have your own way, it’s sometimes better to settle for the half,
“most of the times now we settle for half and I like it better”.
