A View from the Bridge: Relation Ship Between Eddie & Catherine

Eddie and Catherine are two important characters form the play “A View From The Bridge” by Arthur Miller. The play takes place in Brooklyn around 1950’s. Catherine is an orphan who grew up with her aunt and her aunt’s husband. She sees them as her parents. Eddie who is her aunt’s husband is like a real father to Catherine. Eddie and Catherine’s relationship changes from father and daughter to woman and man throughout the play. This change affects everybody around them and causes problems which ends tragically. In the play there are several main stages that show us the changes in Eddie and Catherine’s relationship.

These stages are usually small incidents but each of them develops a new point to the relationship. The first point is on page 6 where Eddie starts commenting on Catherine’s skirt then goes on to criticize her walk and her actions. In that conversation Catherine says, “ “Eddie, I wish there was one guy you couldn’t tell me things about! ” This dialogue shows that Eddie has been overprotective before and Catherine has realized it. She does not say it seriously but rather, a joke; however she is actually trying to express that he’s being too overprotective.

The device of depicting Italian and Sicilian immigrants, enables Miller to make them more or less articulae in English. Only Alfiery is a properly articulate, educated speaker of American English: for this reason he can explain Eddie’s actions to us, but not Eddie, who does not really speak his language. Eddie, who does not really speak his language. Eddie uses a naturalistic Brooklyn slang. His speech is simple, but at the start of the play is more colourful, as he tells Catherine she is “walkin’ wavy” and as he calls her “Madonna”

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Catherine’s speech is more often in grammatically standard forms, but not always. Her meekness is shown in the frequency with which her speeches begin with “Yeah”, agreeing with, or qualifying, Eddie’s comments. Rodolpho speaks with unnatural exactness. The words are all English but the phrases are not always idiomatic. He recalls vivid details of his life in Sicily, and he is given to poetic comparisons as when, on page 46, he likens Catherine to “a little bird” that has not been allowed to fly.

Marco has to think before he can speak in whole phrases or sentences: this means he says little, which reinforces two ideas: that Marcois thoughtful, and that he is a man of action, rather than words. e Eddie Carbone is the tragic protagonist of “ The view from the bridge”. He is constantly self-interested, wanting to promote and protect his innocence. Eddie creates a fictional fantasy world where his absurd decisions make sense, where calling the Immigration Bureau in the middle of an Italian community that prides itself on protecting illegal immigrants has no repercussions.

In Eddie’s world, he imagines protecting Catherine from marriage or an male relationship and wants her for himself. While Eddie wavers and switches between communal and state laws and cultures, his motivations do not change. Eddie constantly looks out for himself at the expense of others and is ruled by personal love and guilt. There are several moments in the text where the audience is given clues that Eddie’s love for Catherine may not be normal. For example, when Catherine lights Eddie’s cigar in the living room, it is an event that gives Eddie unusual pleasure.

This possibly warm and affectionate act between niece and uncle has phallic suggestions. Depending on interpretation by the actors, this moment many have more or less sexual undertones. Eddie’s great attention to his attractive niece and impotence in his own marital relationship immediately makes this meaning clear. Although Eddie seems unable to understand his feelings for his niece until the end of the play, other characters are aware. Beatrice is the first to express this possibility in her conversation with Catherine.

Alfieri also realizes Eddie’s feelings during his first conversation with Eddie. Eddie does not comprehend his feelings until Beatrice clearly articulates his desires in the conclusion of the play,” You want somethin’ else, Eddie, and you can never have her! ” Eddie does not realize his feelings for Catherine because he has constructed an imagined world where he can suppress his urges. This suppression is what devastates Eddie. Because He has no outlet for his feelings, even in his own conscious mind, Eddie transfers his energy to hatred of Marco and Rodolpho nd causes him to act completely irrationally. Eddie’s final need to secure or retrieve his good name from Marco is a result of Eddie’s failure to protect Catherine from Marco. Eddie believes he will regain his pride in the community, another wholly self-interested act. Eddie escaped restraint because he escaped all thoughts of other people or the community at large. Eddie’s “wholeness” is a whole interest in himself. Eddie’s tragic flaw is the bubble, the constructed world he exists within, but is unable to escape or recognize.

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