Yet despite his feelings he agrees to let her work, which shows that he will do anything to make her happy.
Their relationship is more special than that of a father and daughter. She will do anything for him. She brings him slippers. She even says herself that she seems to understand his every need. She is behaving more like a wife towards him that his niece. In fact she even criticises Beatrice to Rodolpho for failing to be a proper wife to Eddie. This relationship is too intense.
Eddie and Catherine even talk together in the bathroom while she is hardly clothed.
“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”
“Well I forget”
“Well you can’t do it. Or like you sit on the edge of the bath tub talkin to him when he’s shavin in his underwear”
Eddie loves Catherine as if she were his daughter. Yet he is also likely to be physically attracted to her and loves her. He denies this to himself despite Beatrice and Alfieri telling him. This is because accepting it would destroy his pride in himself and destroy his sense of self respect.
Because he thinks Rodolpho is taking Catherine away from him he invents excuses to dislike Rodolpho, for example Eddie calls Rodolpho a homosexual.
“He’s a blond guy like… platinum. You know what I mean?”
“I mean if you close the paper fast – you could blow him over”
He continues in a similar way:
“Wait a minute, i'm telling you sump’m. He sings, see which is – I mean it’s all right, but sometimes he hits a note, see. I turn around. I mean – high you know what I mean?”
“I’m telling you sump’m, wait a minute, please. Mr. Alfieri, i’m tryin to bring out my thoughts here. Couple of nights ago my niece brings out a dress which is too small for her, because she shot up like a light this last year. He takes the dress, lays it on the table, he cuts it up: one – two – three, he makes a new dress. I mean he looked so sweet there, like an angel – you could kiss him he was so sweet.”
Perhaps Eddie feels threatened by all the skills Rodolpho has.
Eddie also makes an excuse that Rodolpho just wants his passport to become an American citizen.
“Katie, he’s only bowin to his passport”
“His passport”
“That’s right he marries you he’s got the right to be an American citizen. That’s what goin on here. You understand what i’m telling you. The guy is lookin for his break. That’s all he lookin for.”
Eddie fights with Rodolpho to show him up
“You ever do any boxing”
When Eddie kisses Rodolpho, Catherine loses respect for him.
“Eddie let go, ya hear me! I’ll kill you! Leggo of him!”
Eddie does this because he wants to keep Catherine to himself. No man would ever be good enough for her in his eyes. In desperation he even visits Alfieri his lawyer to see if there are any legal ways of stopping Rodolpho. When Eddie is told there is not he breaks the unwritten code of the Sicilian community and he ‘grasses’ on his relatives. This shows just how desperate he is. Despite the fact he knows that he’s reported Rodolpho and Marco to immigration he tries to deny it to everyone, maybe even to himself.
“That one! (Pointing at Eddie) He killed my children! That one stole the food from my children!”
“He’s crazy! I give them the blankets off my bed. Six months I kept them like my own brothers”
Despite his actions he still demands respect from his wife.
“I want my respect, Beatrice, and you know what i’m talking about”
Catherine is the most important thing to him, next his ‘name’. But Catherine now hates him for being a grass.
“How can you listen to him? This rat!”
“Don’t you call him that”
“What’re you scared of? He’s a rat! He belongs in the sewer”
At the end of the play Eddie goes for Marco with a knife. He must know that Marco is stronger than himself, so this is suicide. It is easier for him to die than to live with his reputation destroyed and no Catherine in his life.
Eddie was too passionate. If he had let Catherine marry Rodolpho she would have loved Eddie even more for this. Instead he lost her and everything else except his wife, who sticks by him the end, despite everything he has done.
Catherine had always respected Eddie and wanted to please him. She wanted some freedom but was happy to stay at home and give most of her money to Eddie and Beatrice.
“I just – i’m gonna buy all new dishes with my first pay! I mean it. Ill fix up the whole house! I’ll buy a rug!”
She had very strong feelings for Eddie and if he hadn’t ‘grassed’ or interfered so much she would have included him in her life.
Despite all he’s done Catherine sill invites Eddie to her wedding and is very upset when he dies.
“Eddie, I never meant to do nothing bad to you”
When Eddie is dying, Catherine apologises to him showing that she feels responsible for what has happened. She is the cause, or the centre, of all the passion in this play.
