Being an American, he has fewer ‘Italian’ mannerisms than many of the other main characters such as B (Beatrice), Marco and Rodolfo, who were all raised near or in Sicily, Italy.
Catherine
Eddie’s 17-year old daughter, being a teenager still is not entirely sure about herself or what she wants to do. However she is in many ways very feminine and does indeed have an ‘enlarged’ character (during the 1955 original play many characters were said to be very boring, and so Arthur Miller aimed to make many characters have a more colourful and interesting character). She is exceedingly naïve and often fails to realize the truth of the situations that unfold in front of her. She is an ‘Italian’ brought up in America, which affects her speech because she uses both Italian and American mannerisms. She is thought to be ‘looser’ than most Italian girls by Rodolfo.
Rodolfo
Rodolfo is truly happy-go-lucky and carefree. He is not the most intelligent of people and this can be seen in the way he sometimes throws himself into things because of his outgoing and careless attitude; indeed he is an illegal immigrant and even this he takes fairly lightly. He is known to be very jokey by Eddie’s workmates (other longshoremen) and it appears that Eddie isn’t the only that thinks he may be gay. He came to America because he was ‘bored’ of Italy and perhaps wanted to make more money.
Marco
Marco is a very careful, thoughtful, doubting character who remains mostly silent throughout many events in the play. He is a solemn character (he is away from his family in Italy and only came to America to get money for them). He appears to be very truthful as can be seen when Rodolfo tells the story about how much money they made when they sang. He is in many ways the opposite of Rodolfo in terms of his approach to speech and his general attitude towards others.
Beatrice
Beatrice, like Catherine has an enlarged charisma in this version of the story. She has more in common with her daughter than with anyone else in the story, both in her personality and in her speech. She knows her place and usually listens carefully to her husband before talking. She can be very actively involved in conversations but knows to be reasonably careful and not unwise in the things she does and what she says. She can be serious (shown when she is talking with Eddie about ‘being a real wife’) and may be quite intelligent. She is an Italian; however this is less obvious than with the cousins due to the time she has spent in America.
Alfieri
Alfieri, the lawyer, is the narrator to the story. He makes the story more like a Greek Play. A notable part of the play is when Alfieri describes the first time he saw Eddie; ‘His eyes were like tunnels; my first thought was that he had committed a crime, but soon I saw it was only a passion that had moved into his body, like a stranger.’ He speaks poetically, most similar to the original play of 1955 which was in verse. He is compassionate and speaks in a caring manner; he does not appear to be focused on money from his first thoughts of Eddie even though Eddie seems desperate. He treats Eddie almost like a legend or a God; he represents him very dramatically. He adds a more prominent element of drama to the play. He seems to be very emotionally intelligent from the way he talks and the way he grasps very quickly what’s really going on in Eddie’s life: ‘A man works hard, he brings up a child, sometimes it’s a niece. Sometimes even a daughter. And he never realizes it, but through the years- there is too much love for the niece. Do you understand what I’m saying to you?’ From this we can see that he is very polite and grammatically correct; all his sentences make sense and are said in perfect English. He is also brave enough to mention such a sensitive topic and shows that he knows what’s going on in an instant even though he has very little knowledge of Eddie outside of this meeting.
Alfieri emphasizes the ‘Greek tragedy’ aspect of the play; Alfieri is the play’s ‘chorus’, the constant narrator who describes what has just happened or perhaps what will come. Often these interjections come at important points in the play.
Other characters
There are only two other characters that have appeared during Act I, Mike and Lois. However, although they only have fairly brief parts to play, they are the only way of judging how people ‘on the outside’ are living and talking besides the limited conversation of the main characters on this topic. They have much in common with Eddie (most obviously that they are also longshoremen) and probably live fairly similar lives in many ways. In Eddie’s conversation with them halfway through Act I, they seem to find Rodolfo a comical character and have no trouble point this out. They have very similar speech patterns to Eddie and use many of the same slang words.
