“Beautiful turn around, lemme see the back. Oh, if your mother was alive to see you how she wouldn’t believe it “
This quote states clearly the unnatural attraction he for Catherine because if he loved her as a niece then he would not have asked to the back side of her, this is something unusual for an uncle to say.
Eddie has many factors about him like the fact that he is very caring towards Catherine and Beatrice,
“Well then what happened, come over here talk to me”.
Eddie loved his niece Catherine very much, although at the beginning of the play you couldn’t tell what sort of feelings he had for her, but the audience could still easily tell he really cared about her,
“I promised your mother on her death bed, I’m responsible for you’’.
This quote shows that Eddie’s a good person, as he had taken the responsibility to look after his niece who is Catherine. He has been looking after her since she was a child and cares about her alot.
“I supported you this long, I support you a little more’’
This shows that Eddie works very hard on the ships to support his wife Beatrice and his niece Catherine, but as he loved Catherine more he supported her the most by providing her with money, and paying for her to go collage. But as Catherine gets older she stops to appreciate this. One day Catherine is offered a job as stenographer and then decides to quit school. Her decision made Eddie angry, he tried to force her to carry on with school, But as Beatrice agrees with her decision she convinces him to let her take the job.
Thing start to go wrong for Eddie when Beatrice younger cousins Rudolpho and Marco arrive to America. Here is when Catherine starts to fall in love with Rudolpho. Further into the play Catherine decides to marry Rudolpho. Eddie finds out and this makes him furious.
“You like him’’, “yeah I like him’’.
Catherine is Eddie’s main weakness as he has a secret lust for her; this is why things go wrong for him. There are a many moments in the play that show that eddies feeling for Catherine are not what they should be. Although Eddie is unaware of the feelings he has for his niece until the end of the play, other characters are. His wife Beatrice is first person to realise his romantic feelings towards Catherine. During an argument Beatrice is the one who makes Eddie understand his feelings.
“You want something else, Eddie, and you can never have her’’
This is the moment when Eddie realises the lust he has for Catherine, and this is what causes his death.
Alfieri introduces the setting at the beginning of the play by describing the areas of the play is set “This is red hook, not Sicily. This is the slum that faces the bay on the SeaWorld side of Brooklyn bridge’’ Alfieri is telling the audience that it is a very poor area and that the Carbone family live close to the docks in the red hook like a longshoreman and his wives and fathers, grandfathers, compensation, cases and family squabbles.
“Neighbourhood lack elegance, glamour’’
Here Alfieri states that the neighbourhood is not rich that they don’t have any elegance or glamour and that the people who live there are poor.
Alfieri explains the historical context to the audience in his role of the narrator he mentions that most of the residents of the red hook originally come from Italy and this shows it.
“But this red hooks not icily. This is the slum that faces the bay on the seaweed side of Brooklyn bridge’’.
Alfieri explains that justice, honour and pride were very important to the Sicilians. We know this because he goes on to say “we’re only thought of in connection with disaster, and they’d rather not get in too close’’ This shows that when they get into an argument they sort it out between themselves even if it’s something serious they don’t involve the police.
“This is the gullet of new York swallowing the tonnage of the world and now we are quit civilized quite American’’.
This quote shows that the Italian cultures is slowly evaporating because they have been in America for a long time, however they still take matters into their own hands. It also shows that a few years before the play took place, the neighbourhood was very violent and gangsters were looked up to and respected more than feared but now things are calmer and Alfieri likes it better.
” Now we settle for half and I like it better’’.
Alfieri introduces the character of Eddie to us by mentioning his age and his appearance.
“He is forty a husky, slightly overweight longshoreman’’
This shows that Eddie is a bit over weight and that he works as a longshoreman.
Similarly to Greek tragedy Alfieri talks to the audience to let them know what is happening, Alfieri mentions that he encourages sympathy for Eddie,
“I think I love him more than all my sensible clients’’.
Alfieri is making the audience feel sympathy just like he does for him.
Alfieri was foreshadowing to give us hints about what will happen later in the play Alfieri mentions that his hints at the end of the play will end with violence when he says,
“Run its bloody cause”
When Alfieri finds out that Catherine is going to marry Rodolpho.He makes a visit to Alfieri to ask him if there’s anything he can do to prevent Catherine from marring Rodolpho.
Alfieri tells Eddie to let Catherine go as he has too much love for her that he should not have.
“A river will drown you”
Here Alfieri warns Eddie that something terrible will happen if does not to do this.
As a narrator Alfieri is powerless to affect the outcome of the play,
“Sat there as powerless as I””
Here he is explaining that at one point of the play Eddie is going to have to go through a problem which neither he nor Eddie will have the power to solve it.
