When the cousins, Marco and Rodolfo, get there Eddie is quite formal with them, asking lots of questions like “Yiz have a nice trip?” and “Yiz ever work on the piers in Italy?” He wants to focus the attention of the people in the room on the cousins so none of the problems with the family itself are noticed. Marco seems rather shy as he only gives very short answers. When Eddie asks him if it is still bad in Italy he replies, “Bad, yes” without getting into detail about the situation. Rodolfo, on the other hand, seems very talkative. When Catherine asks him why they don’t have automobile taxis in Italy he answers, “There is one. We push that too….Everything in our town, you gotta push!” He gives much more detailed answers than his brother. This makes Marco look shy but maybe he is just more responsible than Rodolfo and understands that he cannot give anything away about how he came to the country. Eddie directs all of his questions to Marco and doesn’t seem to want to talk to Rodolfo much. When Rodolfo sings Eddie tells him to stop, saying “Because we never had no singers here…and all of a sudden there’s a singer in the house…” but this could just be because he dislikes Rodolfo as Catherine seems to have taken a liking to him, and just because he was singing wouldn’t mean that people would think it was suspicious. This leads us to think that not only does he want the attention not on the family, but not on Rodolfo either. Eddie especially seems to want Catherine not to be noticed because he hardly speaks to her all night and he says to her, “What are the heels for Garbo?” about her shoes and she replies “I figured for tonight -“ but then he interrupts and tells her to change them. Since he was going to let Beatrice make the house all clean it is unfair that he won’t let Catherine wear anything special. This could also be related to when, earlier in the play, he made comments about her skirt being too short before the cousins arrived but he already knew at that point that they were there. However, Eddie cannot stop Catherine and Rodolfo forming a bond and soon he has no power over her, like when she and Rodolfo go to see a film and he says to Beatrice, “It’s after eight.” Also when she gets home he checks up to see which cinema she went to. We saw earlier in the play that Eddie doesn’t like Catherine going out when Beatrice said to him, “you gonna keep her in the house all her life?” and now that she has started to go off with other people he is very worried and anxious. Beatrice is relaxed and calm about Catherine being late so maybe Eddie has stronger feelings for Catherine than we would expect an uncle to have. Eddie then tries to steer Catherine away from Rodolfo by telling her that he is only pretending to like her so she will marry him and then he will become an American citizen but Catherine does not believe him. He also repeatedly tells Catherine and Beatrice that Rodolfo is homosexual and always uses the same phrase: “The guy ain’t right.” Eddie then goes onto teasing Rodolfo. When Marco tells them that Rodolfo can cook, Eddie says, “It’s wonderful. He sings, he cooks, he could make dresses…” Eddie says this sarcastically but Rodolfo takes it as a genuine compliment and Catherine tries to stick up for him by saying that cooks could get a lot of money. Eddie feels that Catherine is drifting further and further away from him. He even tells her, “I don’t see you no more” and “I don’t know how to talk to you”. As Eddie’s apparent concern grows, Beatrice always tries to make the peace. When Catherine is late home she makes sure that Eddie knows that it was because the film ended late to avoid any conflict in case Eddie thought it was Catherine’s fault. When Eddie makes fun of Rodolfo singing, cooking and sewing she sticks up for him by saying, “Well it’s good, he could always make a living.” Beatrice realises that Eddie has these overprotective instincts towards Catherine and she tries to put his mind at rest. The audience here, though, can see that Eddie’s feelings are unnatural and that he is just trying to break up the relationship between Rodolfo and Catherine because he is jealous. Some of the stage directions give hints about Eddie’s true feelings like when Catherine is walking towards him Miller has written ‘he can’t help smiling at the sight of her’. This may not seem obvious but he has just been anxious and worried about where she has been so for him to smile when anyone in the same situation would be angry gives us an indication of his strong feelings for her.
Throughout the play, the lawyer Alfieri has been seen regularly and he has several roles in the play. His most obvious role is Eddie’s lawyer, offering him advice. His other role is as a sort of subtle narrator. He talks to the audience but instead of telling them what is going to happen, he tells them his feelings about things that will happen. His character is sort of set apart from everyone else in the play. He can be talking to Eddie at one point then turn to the audience and talk about things which happened a month later. The way that he tells us of his feelings about what has happened leaves us intrigued to know what he is talking about but we feel the tension because of what he actually says, for example, “It was at this time that he first came to me.” Alfieri has not been on the stage in the previous scene so we get the impression that he knows something that we do not and also he says “…first came to me” which means that Eddie must go to visit him again and telling us that something exciting must happen later on because Eddie only really has need to visit a lawyer when something bad happens, therefore building up the tension even more. Alfieri opens the play with a speech, setting the scene (along with Miller’s stage directions) and giving us some background information about the play itself and his life. He tells us that he was born in Italy and lived there for twenty five years so he must have a sense of the Italian way of justice rather than law. This means that he must make some very tough decisions as he is a lawyer. He says, “We’re [lawyers] only thought of in connection with disasters…” Here he is actually telling us that because he is a character in this particular play then there will be a disaster at some point in the plot. He also says:
“…who have I dealt with in my life...the petty troubles of the poor - and yet…every few years there is still a case, and as the parties tell me what the trouble is…the thought comes that…another lawyer…heard the same complaint and sat there as powerless as I, and watched it run its bloody course.”
This must be him telling us what the play is about because if it wasn’t then it would be completely irrelevant and there would have been no need to say it. Alfieri does actually say that one of these cases was about Eddie Carbone. The way that Alfieri says, “sat there as powerless as I” tells us that something bad happens which a lawyer cannot control, even with the law on his side, leading us to believe that the play is about justice rather than what is lawfully right. We already feel the tension this early in the play, although we haven’t even met the main characters yet. It is Alfieri’s tone of voice and language that give us clues to the drama in the play. When Alfieri is visited by Eddie, he is torn between the ideas of law and justice, leaving him confused. He gives very short answers like “All right” and “Certainly” because he is not sure what is the right thing to do. Alfieri decides, in the end, to stick with the law and therefore advises Eddie that there is nothing he can do about the relationship between Catherine and Rodolfo, even if Rodolfo is just using her to become a citizen and even if he is homosexual. Alfieri understands that Eddie has unnatural feelings for Catherine and he speaks in an almost patronizing way to him about them:
“…there is too much love for the niece. Do you understand what I’m saying to you?”
He advises Eddie to get rid of these feelings now before anything drastic happens. Eddie is very upset to hear these words from Alfieri as he has being trying to deny them but now he has to face the facts. He is angry, but perhaps it would have been better to remain calm as he overreacts a little. This adds to the dramatic tension because we, as the audience, already know how he feels, but with Beatrice and Alfieri starting to realise, Eddie must be nervous and also angry so we wonder where this will all end up if he can’t control his feelings and accepts Catherine’s love for Rodolfo.
In the final part of Act 1, the tension in the room is at its maximum. Eddie seems eager to start an argument, letting us know that he has not taken Alfieri’s advice. He makes comments like, “…they count the kids and there’s a couple extra than when they left” about immigrants returning to their own country. The way he twists the paper is him discreetly letting out his anger about Catherine and Rodolfo dancing. Miller finds it important to include details like this in the stage directions because we will know that there is tension in the room even if everyone is acting in a civilized way towards each other. We can see that Beatrice is tense and wants to get everyone calm in phrases like “Well then, be an uncle then” to Eddie about Catherine. Catherine realises that something is wrong but being young and innocent she doesn’t realise that it her uncle’s feelings for her that is the problem. When she asks Rodolfo to dance we are told that she is ‘flushed with revolt’ because she is showing Eddie that she can now do what she wants. Rodolfo also realises there is some sort of problem because he is nervous. They both know that Eddie disapproves. Eddie tries to act unconcerned but he lowers his newspaper and watches them, showing that he is keeping his eye on both of them. We see this when Catherine asks him to dance and he says, “No, I - I’m tired” because Eddie is there. Marco is also edgy because when Eddie and Rodolfo are practising fighting and Eddie hits Rodolfo, Marco immediately rises. Eddie’s attitude towards Rodolfo suddenly changes when they are fighting - he is encouraging him and complimenting him. This sudden change of heart tells us that it is all an act just so Eddie can show Marco that he should never have messed with Eddie because he would always have been beaten. When Rodolfo tells Eddie that it is a lot stricter where they come from Eddie replies, “It ain’t so free here, Rodolfo, like you think.” Eddie is intending this as a warning to Rodolfo about dating Catherine, and because he adds “like you think”, he is making out like the relationship between Catherine and Rodolfo is wrong. When Marco beats Eddie in the ‘chair raising’ challenge, it is almost like a come back to Eddie’s fight with Rodolfo. Marco has always seemed to be shy and has always done what Eddie tells him to do but he can see that Eddie’s fight was symbolic. As Marco is Italian and they always show loyalty to their family, Marco is sticking up for his brother and responding to Eddie’s threat with another. He is showing that although Eddie can beat Rodolfo, he would also have to beat Marco, but he cannot do that. The way that the chair is raised over his head is like the Statue of Liberty, a symbol of freedom. Marco smiles, knowing that he has won his brother’s right to do what he wants and Eddie realises that he has been beaten.
The ending to Act 1 is effective as during the play the tension has been very subtle and we have needed to look beyond the words and stage directions to see everyone’s feeling. But in the final scene it is very obvious that there is tension in the room. Everything in this Act has seemed to lead up to who will win in the end and the ending of Act 1 shows us that although Rodolfo cannot, his brother will accept the challenge on his behalf. An audience would be rather alarmed at everyone’s sudden changes - Catherine’s rebellion, Beatrice’s gentleness gone, Rodolfo’s nervousness, Marco’s sudden strong character and Eddie’s realisation that he has been overpowered. Alfieri has increased the build up of tension throughout this Act by telling us beforehand his feelings about what is going to happen, making us on edge through the whole of the play.
