In the past tense, this is a major clue that Eddie dies at some time during the play (“This ones name was Eddie Carbone”). This speech by Alfieri leads us to believe that the play will follow the structure of a classic Greek Tragedy. It makes the audience anticipate that Eddie Carbone will die, but it makes them wonder when it will happen and entices the audience to keep watching. The play is very similar to Oedipious Rex in its structure and the fact that the main character is supposedly doomed from the start. We know the conclusion of the play, but do not know how we will get there. Alfieri is even quoted saying “A man like Eddie Carbone did not expect to have a destiny” which leads us even more to believe that Eddie will meet a grim end.
The boxing match is a very clever scene in the play. It hosts a lot of emotions and makes the audience react in different ways. It is a very action packed moment in the play, yet it is full of a lot of drama and unpredictable reactions from the characters. Eddie starts off as a man who is trying to teach Rodolpho how to box, but ends up as a man who is completely blinded by his hate for Rodolpho and his desire to show up Rodolpho as a feminine ‘Pretty boy’. He starts off by delivering a number of gentle punches to Rodolpho, but ends up putting all his weight behind a punch that knocks Rodolpho off of his feet and onto the canvas. This is Eddie taking his golden opportunity to take out his anger on Rodolpho physically in an environment where he won’t be damned by his family. It is opportunism at its best. In this scene, Beatrice seems to be naïve of the fact that Eddie is taking out his frustration on Rodolpho and is busy praising Rodolpho’s boxing skills. She says “He’s teaching him, he’s very good!” which shows that she is unaware of what Eddies intentions are.
In this scene, however, Eddie never loses his cool which makes his family even more unaware of his intentions. After knocking Rodolpho down to the mat, he says in reply to Beatrice’s pleas for him to stop that “Why, I didn’t hurt him. Did I hurt you kid?” which shows that he doesn’t want Rodolpho to know his true feelings either. By the end of this scene, the audience feels sympathy towards Rodolpho and loses some respect for Eddie.
In the scene with the infamous kiss between Eddie and Rodolpho, the audience is led to believe there own imagination to understand Eddies motivation for kissing Rodolpho. We have a number of different ideas concerning why Eddie would want to kiss Rodolpho. One reason for him to kiss Rodolpho is that he wants to show up Rodolpho for being homosexual. We are led to believe that Eddie thinks this of Rodolpho because he always treats him with a certain amount of suspicion for being blonde and looking slightly feminine. He also treats him with suspicion after he is told that Rodolpho makes dresses and can cook. In a Sicilian society, this would be quite odd for a male of the family to take interest in such feminine choirs such as dress making and cookery. He could simply be showing Catherine that Rodolpho is enjoying kissing a man and wants to embarrass him. Eddie is quoted in saying “You see?” which backs up this theory.
However, the most obvious reason for Eddie kissing Rodolpho is that he is in fact himself homosexual. He himself says earlier in the play along the lines of (referring to Rodolpho) “He’s so pretty, you could kiss him”. This would also explain Eddie’s overall homophobic attitude to Rodolpho, that he himself is hiding his un-Sicilian sexual urges. This would also explain him not having sexual intercourse with Beatrice and not treating her as a true wife by ever being romantic with her. Others would say, however, that the kiss is symbolic as if it was the ‘kiss of
death’. In the bible, Judas shows the Romans who Jesus was by kissing him. This could be him telling Rodolpho to back away from Catherine in a more ironic fashion. Having said that, a lot of people would just say that Eddie had kissed Rodolpho and Catherine because he was drunk and it was his true emotions coming out in the opening. By this point in the play, the audience does not know what has come over Eddie. We have just seen Rodolpho deliver a tender, sweet romantic scene with Catherine telling her that he loves her and wants the best for her, and found the scene ending with an all out argument and kiss with Eddie. We feel embarrassed for Eddie, but even more embarrassed for Rodolpho because Eddie is saying in front of Catherine that he thinks that Rodolpho is gay. We feel more sympathy for Rodolpho at this point and we start to see Eddie as a ruthless, jealous drunk who does what he thinks is best for himself. Our respect for Eddie which we had at the beginning has dropped considerably.
The scene where Eddie informs the immigration bureau about Marco and Rodolpho is one of the most dramatic in the entire play. It shows Eddie ‘Selling his soul’ to get Catherine, because informing on family or on another Sicilian was seen as the worst thing possible to do. His very own society would spit on him and disown him for doing this. Eddie is breaking the Sicilian code of honour by contacting the immigration bureau and telling them about Marco and Rodolpho. The things that are seen almost as worse as murderers and thieves in Sicilian society are ‘stool pigeons’ (people that tell the police/authority figures about what illegal activities go on in the community).
Eddie is motivated in this scene by his pure lust for Catherine and his hate which has now spiralled out of control for Rodolpho. The scene consists of a huge fight between Marco and Eddie in front of the whole neighbourhood, and the public humiliation of Eddie. The entire neighbourhood turns against Eddie for what he has done to Marco and Rodolpho, and Eddie is now by this point everything he has stated that he hates (the person that ruins families, the stool pigeon etc). His selfishness contradicts Alfieri’s wise advice from the beginning. He does everything that Alfieri says would eventually lead to his demise.
After this scene, Eddie is seen as an ogre and the audience loses all their respect for him. Alfieri is now seen as everything that Eddie is not. Alfieri is guided by his morals which are often paramount to all of his actions, and Eddie has lost all of his morals and ‘sold his soul’ so to speak.
The reason why Eddie is portrayed this way could be because of the fact that Arthur Miller was opposed to the McCarthy witch trials and had first hand experience of what a ‘grass’ can do to a society/person (his friendship with Elia Kazan which ended in Arthur Miller being blacklisted). Eddie is portrayed as a man who has lost all his morals and as someone who had informed for their own personal gain. This could be because Arthur Miller wanted to give the message that informing is something that immoral people do for their own personal gain.
In the end of the play, Eddie is stabbed by Marco, but is really a victim of his own fatal flaws. He follows the standard classic tragic hero trajectory and dies because of his own ignorance his submission to his wants and desires which had been suppressed
in the past. Eddies life is like a classic Greek tragedy, and shows “Mans lack of understanding of whom he is and his blindness in the face of destiny”. He is an overall good guy who becomes a victim of his one fatal flaw. We do not feel sympathy for him at the end because we feel that he deserves death for what he has done to Marco, Rodolpho and his family.
In conclusion, A View from a Bridge shows how one man can start off as a good, honest man and end up as a ruthless, jealous victim of himself.
