What techniques does Miller use to show Eddie’s changing relationships with the other characters in “A View from the Bridge”?
At the beginning of the play Eddie and Catherine’s relationship starts as that of a father and daughter. However, as the play progresses, their relationship soon changes to one of a man and a woman when Eddie’s true feelings for Catherine begin to unveil. Unfortunately, Catherine is too naive and oblivious to realize that his intentions are improper. Although these changes seem to be gradual, they are none the less dramatic and have an enormous impact on all those around them. The negative change in their relationship ultimately brings about a tragic ending. The relationship he has with Beatrice is troubled because he does not love her and does not give her any real affection. Eddie’s relationship with Rodolfo is distant from the moment they meet. On the other hand the relationship Eddie has in the beginning of the play with Marco is good because Eddie believes that they both share similar family values. Interestingly, throughout the play much of Arthur Miller’s stage directions quite often seem to say more about the characters underlying thoughts than the actual dialogue. Miller also uses this technique to show his audience, symbolically, what is going on between the characters.
In the opening of the play it’s very clear that Eddie cares very much for Catherine. This can be heard in the quote “You ain’t ‘all the girls’ ". This remark may suggest that he loves her very much, but not only as a niece. Eddie’s feelings for Catherine begin to transform and this can be seen when Eddie starts commenting on Catherine’s skirts and then goes on to criticize her walk as well as her actions. The quotation “Turn around, lemme see in the back” demonstrates this and also shows that Eddie is excessively over protective of Catherine and doesn’t want any other man looking or coming anywhere near her. Eddie is also fascinated by her beauty and compliments her by calling her his “Madonna”. During this time in 1914 it was believed that when a man complimented a woman, by using religious imagery, it was not only acceptable but very honorable as well. This worked well for Eddie because while he appeared to be paying her a respectable compliment, he was in fact flirting with her. Catherine, as would many women during that time, took no offense as she did not understand the true nature of his intentions. At times the audience may also believe that Eddie himself does not realize exactly when he has crossed the line with his feelings for Catherine. However, in certain parts of the play, the audience is given clues that Eddie’s love for Catherine may not be normal. For example, when Catherine lights Eddie's cigar in the living room “She strikes a match and holds it to his cigar. He puffs. Quietly” this stage direction may imply that Eddie gets some odd sense of pleasure from not only Catherine’s jest but his response to it. Miller’s subtle changes in Eddie’s emotional connection to Catherine seem to portray Eddie’s character as an unwitting seducer. The audience often wonders if Eddie himself is fully aware of the depth and distortion of his feelings for Catherine although it appears that some of the other characters are keenly aware of this shift. Ironically, it is his wife Beatrice that is the first to express this possibility in her conversation with Catherine. At one point in the play, Catherine appears to stand up for herself when she puts on the record “Paper Doll” and asks Rodolfo to dance with her. When she does this “Eddie freezes” because he never expected Catherine to do something like this. He is also overcome with jealousy because he is furious that another man could love her the way he does and that she accepts it. Miller has Eddie’s character construct him an ‘imaginary’ world in order to suppress urges that unconsciously he feels are somehow wrong. In doing so, Eddie begins to act in irrational ways, especially directed at Rodolfo and Marco. He is eventually devastated and destroyed by his own frustrations which ultimately turn against him and all those around him in the form of anger. Eddie is finally forced to face his true feelings when Beatrice confronts him with what she has suspected all along in the conclusion of the play by saying, "You want somethin' else, Eddie, and you can never have her!” However, by the end of the play Eddie and Catherine’s relationship is completely over as shown in the quote “This rat!”, but when she says “Eddie, I never meant to do nothing bad to you.”, this may imply that she still really cares for him and although his intentions where less than honorable, he had always been there for her throughout the play. Miller may also try inadvertently to suggest that perhaps Catherine’s feelings may also have crossed a very delicate line.
