Who Or What Is To Blame For The Tragic Ending In Arthur Miller's Play, 'A View From A Bridge'?

Who Or What Is To Blame For The Tragic Ending In Arthur Miller's Play,

'A View From A Bridge'?

'A View From A Bridge' is set in the harsh Red Hook waterfront community, in 1940's New York. The main character, Eddie Carbone ends the play by dieing on his own knife as he fights to try and reclaim his good name.

There are four main characters that help contribute to this demise. The protagonist, Eddie Carbone is mainly to blame by having to much love for his orphaned niece Catherine. This is added to by the adolescent Catherine who is not aware of her innocent girlish flirtation. Eddies wife Beatrice adds to this, by fully knowing about Eddie and Catherine's relationship, but still does nothing about it. Eddie gets jealous over Catherine when Beatrice's cousin Rodolfo arrives and immediately bonds with Catherine and forms a close relationship with her, which Eddie dislikes.

Eddie finds himself having to many different feelings towards Catherine. He is to overprotective of her. At the start of the play when Catherine buys a new skirt , Eddie say

'I think it's to short, ain't it'

which proves that he is watching her and analysing her look and the way she dresses. He also says

'Their heads are turnin' like windmills'

which show that he thinks she is showing too much of herself to the public, which also triggers Eddies reactions to her.

After that when Beatrice and Catherine tell Eddie about Catherine's job, Eddie once again becomes to overprotective and automatically silences the idea.

'What job? She's gonna finish school.'

However as this conversation continues Eddies guard is broken and he is forced to come round to the idea of Catherine getting a job. He even asks where it is, which shows he is continuing to be protective.

On the first reading of the play we don’t see that this behaviour will have a negative effect on the rest of the play but when it is read again we can take time to analyse all the content and realise that it has a big effect on the rest of the play. One example of this is when Catherine goes and gets Eddie a cigar. This action of lighting the cigar for Eddie gives the reader a sign that something physical is going to happen between her and Eddie further in the play.

Also when Alfieri makes an appearance later on in the play he warns Eddie that

' too much love goes where it shouldn't '

which shows us that as well as Beatrice knowing about Eddies feelings Alfieri knows as well and tries to warn Eddie, but Eddie doesn’t think he's that kind of man. Meaning that Eddie is a strong, butch workingman who is strongly in control of his emotions. Or so he thinks.

When the two submarines arrive, Eddie immediately reacts differently to both men. When Marco arrives he shakes Eddies hand and kisses Beatrice's hand, which shows ...

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Also when Alfieri makes an appearance later on in the play he warns Eddie that

' too much love goes where it shouldn't '

When the two submarines arrive, Eddie immediately reacts differently to both men. When Marco arrives he shakes Eddies hand and kisses Beatrice's hand, which shows he has respect for both of them in turn. Whilst Rodolfo stays in the background waiting to be talked to. When Catherine shows and interest in Rodolfo's hair, Eddie tries to change the subject. He says

' how's the coffee doin'?

the stage directions say that Catherine is

' brought up '

which shows us that Eddie wants her to be paying attention to him and doing what he wants and look as if she is interested in him and not Rodolfo.

In the following line the stage directions and text show us that Marco is

' shrugging shyly, even embarrassed '

which give us an impression that Marco is less comfortable using English that Rodolfo. Marco only says short, brief sentences where as Rodolfo uses long, more complicated sentences.

After the part in the play where

' Marco raises a hand to hush him '

Rodolfo is shut out of the conversation and Eddie starts to talk more and more to Marco only. This shows that Eddie is getting on better with Marco that Rodolfo. He sees Marco as more of a mans man, where as he thinks Rodolfo is effeminate. Especially after he dances and sings with Catherine. After this Eddie make Rodolfo stop performing by using the excuse

' you don’t want to be picked up '

which is only a nasty lie because nobody is going to think they are illegal immigrants if all they are doing is singing. However Eddie sees this dancing as playing up to Catherine or in it strongest sense, flirting with her. Both Beatrice and Catherine react in opposition against Eddie. One example of this is when Catherine says

' Leave him finish, its beautiful!… '

which shows us that Catherine is capable of defying Eddie.

Throughout the play Eddie Carbone is given advice mainly by two people and he ignores them both. Alfieri and Beatrice try to give him advice but he effectively throws it back in their faces. Towards the end of the play Eddie goes to see Alfieri who gives him advices and warns him about calling the immigration bureau

' You wont have a friend in the world … put it out of your mind! Eddie! '

even this warning doesn’t stop Eddie, he makes the call and sure enough later on in the play everybody who he classed as a friend left him. This warning that Alfieri give him has a big effect on the rest of the play. It gives us a deep feeling that something tragic is going to happen and happen soon.

Eddies actions play a big part on what happens in the play. We can tell from his early actions that something is going to happen to Eddie.

In the scene where Eddie uses the excuse of teaching Rodolfo to box, he is trying to teach him a lesson for what Eddie saw as flirting with Catherine. In supposedly teaching him to box he hits Rodolfo quit hard and

' mildly staggers Rodolfo. Marco rises '

At this point Marco realises that Eddie means business but Marco stays silent and watches as Catherine steps in and protects Rodolfo by shouting at Eddie. Eddie denies that he really hurt Rodolfo and Beatrice stops the fighting by

' pulling Eddie down into the rocker '

After a while Marco speaks actions that he has noticed that Eddie was trying to take control of Rodolfo and show him who's boss. So Marco challenges Eddie to lift a chair by one of its legs. Eddies finds this extremely difficult and tries to make an excuse that the chair is on an angle, but Marco lifts the chair first time and stands shadowing Eddie with the chair up like a weapon over Eddies head and almost give a direct threat but then smiles at Eddie as if to say he was only playing and didn’t mean it.

The action that Eddie performs when he calls the immigration bureau shows us that he has lost control over his feelings all together. He would rather send Marco and Rodolfo back to Italy to starve and maybe even die, that let Catherine go to Rodolfo. Eddies wants Catherine all for himself and can't bare to see her happy with anyone else. Catherine even says

' …I wish there were one guy you couldn’t tell me things about! '

which proves that Catherine knows that Eddie will discriminate every decent guy she likes just to keep her as his own.

Eddie can't keep his feelings together anymore goes out, gets rather drunk and comes back to see Catherine and Rodolfo coming out of the bedroom dressed untidily. Eddie puts two and two together and tells Rodolfo

' Pack it up. Go ahead. Get your stuff and get outa here. '

After this remark Catherine tries to go with Rodolfo but Eddie grabs her arm and as she struggles to get free

' he kisses her on the lips '

at this moment Rodolfo is horrified and immediately tries to protect Catherine by telling Eddie off for his actions. Nevertheless when Rodolfo tries to attack Eddie for his awful deed, Eddies

' …pins his arms as kisses him '

which humiliates Rodolfo's masculinity. With this move Eddie looses all of what's left of his dignity and his control over his feelings and actions.

Eddies own pride and lack of loyalty is also partly to blame for what happened.

If Eddie hadn't been so proud as to admit to Beatrice that he had a problem with his feeling for Catherine then most of the unfortunate events in the play may not have happened and Eddie might still be alive to see his niece getting married.

Furthermore if Eddie had been more loyal to his wife and been a proper husband to Beatrice than Catherine wouldn’t have needed to be so much involved with him as much as she was.

Although Eddie is to blame to a certain extent there were many other factors that need considering before the finger of blame is pointed at any one person.

Catherine is to blame in a big way as she was always acting like a little girl around Eddie. To such an extent that Eddie was becoming more and more fond of her day by day. She doesn’t realise she is doing anything wrong when she

' walks around in front of him in your slip '

and

' sits on the edge of the bathtub…when he's shavin'… '

Catherine thinks this is normal behaviour seeing as no one has ever told her any different until Beatrice sits her down and. In a way warns her to lay off Eddie, because

' if you act like a baby and he be treatin' you like a baby '

which proves that Beatrice has known what's been going on for a long while but yet she has never mentioned it to Catherine.

Alfieri is also partly to blame for the tragedy at the end of the play. Because, Eddie comes to him on many occasion to ask for advice and Alfieri gives him advice that I think he can't understand. If Alfieri had given him some straightforward advice the first time Eddie had come to see him, maybe some of the events in the play might not have happened.

I don’t believe that we can simple accuse one person of causing to tragic ending to this play. Instead I think it is a case of assessing each of the factors mentioned and coming to the conclusion that there were many reasons and contributors to the ending of the play.