Throughout, the play Eddie is fixed on his beliefs about what a ‘real man’ should be and this can be seen through his repulsiveness towards Rodolpho. Rodolpho is a ‘pretty boy’ type of character who is an immigrant from Italy and arrived with his brother Marco. Eddies behavior towards the people in his house illustrates what characteristics he has. Eddie is very protective character; we can conclude this because of the way he talks to Catherine – his step daughter. Eddie tells Catherine that she is “Walkin, wavy” meaning that she is attracting attention to herself – this demonstrates his typical protective male attitude.
Interestingly, Rodolpho does not conform to Eddie’s image of masculinity and manliness. Right from the beginning of the play Eddie despises Rodolpho and says “The guy ain’t right” this is because Rodolpho acts more ‘feminine’, has good looks and is not hardworking.. Right from the start Eddie tries to keep Catherine away from Rodolpho, one example can be seen when Eddie tells Catherine to take of her high heels which attract the attention of Rodolpho.
In contrast, Marco (Rodolpho’s brother) is conventually masculine according to Eddie. Marco conforms to Eddie’s ideas of being a ‘real man’. This is because Marco is hardworking and the reason he came to America, is to “Work,” so he can support his family in Italy, thus, conforming to Eddie’s views of protectiveness. Also, Marco is: hardworking, which can be observed through the other longshoremen’s views on Marco in comparison to Rodolpho. Marco’s ‘manliness’ also leads to conflict between him and Eddie when he wants to protect Rodolpho. This occurs when Marco challenges Eddie’s manliness.
Furthermore, the way the female characters are represented throughout the play have little affect on the way the masculine characters behave. At the end of the play Beatrice (Eddie’s wife) says “whatever happened we all done it, and don’t you forget that Catherine” In my opinion I believe that Beatrice and Catherine have some responsibility for the tragedy because they are part of Eddie’s everyday life, especially Catherine.
Alfieri is one of the characters within the play, and also as narrator, commenting on the action and foretelling the final tragedy. Alfieri is a character of very high stature and very clever when Eddie goes to him, he gives Eddie good choices, however, Eddie choose not to listen to Alfieri, therefore, suffers for his choice. Alfieri uses, thoughtful, educated ideas also sometimes showing black humour.
