A_View_from_the_Bridge-_Catherine_and_Eddie's_Relationship

A View from the Bridge- Eddie and Catherine’s relationship Miller uses relationships in the play ‘A view from the Bridge’ to allow the audience to feel as though they can relate to the characters. He uses Eddie and Beatrice to represent stability and normality so as to show that, with a cruel twist of fate, this could happen to anyone. He uses Catherine and Eddie’s relationship to highlight the fact that their marriage is starting to fall apart yet their love for each other is unconditional and we soon see that the strength of love between the characters leads to Eddie’s tragic, yet inevitable death. In the opening scene of the play, in the words of Alfieri, Eddie is ‘a husky, slightly overweight longshoreman’ – in other words, normal. At first when Eddie gets home form work we see that Catherine is excited to see him as she exclaims ‘ Hi Eddie!’ the way a little child would do. He is ‘pleased’ about this level of affection and when he says ‘Where you goin’ all dressed up'’ he just seems like an overprotective father. Considering the fact that she’s not his own child, the audience see this as an acceptable way to react but as the scene continues, we realise that he sees her as much more than his niece. Catherine, instead of just shrugging the question off runs ‘her hands all over her skirt’ and asks him ‘you like it'’ which is clearly flirtatious and instantly uncomfortable for the audience to watch. When he tells her ;’ you look like one of them girls’ it is suggesting that he views her as ‘one of the girls,’ not just his niece. We get another glimpse of Eddie’s overprotective nature towards Catherine in the conversation about her job. His tone of voice towards her is very blunt as he asks her questions in a ‘strangely nervous’ way. ‘Where’s the job' What company'’- It’s almost as if he doesn’t want her to take the job because she’d be far away from him. His defensive reactions to what she says seem illogical and irrelevant to the audience but it seems he is trying everything he can to convince her not to take the job so that she doesn’t have to grow up and be away from him. When he is defeated, he has to hide the fact that ‘he is affected by her’ by ‘smiling his emotion away’. Miller has used this to show that for the first time Eddie feels as though he is losing Catherine. When the cousins arrive, straight away it is clear that Catherine likes Rodolfo as she ‘wondrously’ asks him ‘how come he’s so dark and you’re so light'’ but as soon as Eddie comes back in and asks ‘how’s the coffee doin’'’, she jumps up, like she feels guilty for flirting with Rodolfo. Eddie ‘is coming more and more to address Marco only’ at this point, showing that he is trying to hide his jealousy by turning away from Rodolfo. We also see that when Catherine is ‘enthralled’ by Rodolfo’s singing, it angers Eddie even further so when she appears with her high heels on he embarrasses her by asking ‘What’s the heels for Garbo'’; clearly trying to show Rodolfo that she is still only ‘a baby’. However, this backfires on Eddie as she retaliates and seductively pours the sugar for Rodolfo. This is the first time we see Catherine stand up to Eddie and it shows that she is willing to do this if she wants something. We see Eddie trying to hide his jealousy again at the boxing scene. When Rodolfo ‘stiffly rises, feeling Eddie’s eyes on his back and they dance’. Miller has done this to show Eddie is a little suspicious and starting to get jealous at this point. When he realises that as well as singing and dress making, he can cook too, in Eddie’s mind he ‘knows’ that Rodolfo is homosexual. He’s already decided that Rodolfo is only interested in Catherine because he wants to become and American citizen. So, he manages to slyly slip into conversation the suggestion of ‘going to the bouts next Saturday night’. It becomes clear to the audience that this is part of a plan when ‘he is weirdly elated, rubbing his fists into his palms’ and tells Rodolfo he’ll teach him boxing. This particular plan could mean both that he wants to hurt Rodolfo or he wants to show both Rodolfo and Marco how strong he is so they know he is the alpha male. Beatrice appears not to see his ulterior motive and thinks he is just doing as he says and ‘teaching’ Rodolfo how to box as she says ‘he’s very good’ clearly trying to see the best in Eddie. However, Miller uses Catherine to show how the audience reacts as she walks in and sees what’s happening. ‘With beginning alarm’ she asks ‘what’re they doing'’ and of course, the inevitable happens when Eddie hits Rodolfo. When Eddie ‘lands with his right’, Catherine immediately rushes to Rodolfo which proves where her loyalty lies. To convince Catherine that he didn’t mean to hurt him he asks ‘did I hurt you'’. The ‘certain gleam and a smile’ that Rodolfo gives Eddie when he says ‘I was only surprised’ suggests that Rodolfo pretended to be more hurt than he actually was so that Catherine would come over to him which is shown when he asks her to dance again, slyly trying to make Eddie feel even more jealous. It seems to the audience that up until now, Marco hasn’t noticed Eddie’s intentions but Miller has done this to symbolise the underlying tension throughout the play. Being a man of few words, Marco simply asks Eddie if he can ‘lift this chair’ and when Eddie struggles, his next actions speak louder than any words he could have said. When he lifts the chair ‘higher and higher’ and ‘holds it like a weapon over Eddie’s head’ it is clear to everyone that he has placed his authority. His ‘glare of warning’ to Eddie suggests that if Eddie does anything to Rodolfo again, Marco has greater power than him and so will not hesitate to use it. For a while after this scene, Eddie manages to contain his jealousy but in the kissing scene his true feelings are revealed. In the conversation before Eddie arrives, Catherine says ‘You think it’s so easy to turn around and say to a man he’s nothin’ to you no more'’ which is something that a girl might say about her boyfriend; certainly not her uncle. Miller has done this to make the audience feel uneasy about her feelings towards Eddie and when she says ‘If I was a wife…’ it is confirmed that the uncomfortable feelings between the two of them are mutual because she is starting to picture herself as Eddie’s wife- ‘I know what he wants’. After this discussion, when both Catherine and Rodolfo are in the bedroom, Eddie comes home early, ‘unsteady, drunk’. Miller is suggesting here that he is both mentally and physically unsteady. At first he doesn’t quite realise what’s happened but when ‘Rodolfo appears in the bedroom doorway, Eddie sees him and his arm jerks in shock’- he has clearly realised what has been going on. At first, his reaction is quite normal for a father- ‘Get your stuff and get outa here’ but when Catherine follows, Eddie gets quite violent as he ‘grabs her arm’. She is ‘trembling with fright’ but when she sees Eddie become upset ‘her sobs of pity and love for him break her composure’- she is trying to be assertive and set herself free because she knows it is the right thing to do but she doesn’t want to leave Eddie because she has too much love for him. He sees that she still loves him and from a rush of emotion, heavily influenced by the alcohol but enhanced by his true feelings ‘he kisses her on the mouth’- something she clearly doesn’t want because ‘she strives to free herself’. This is clearly how he really feels about Catherine and he kisses her to prove that she can’t leave because he still loves her. Miller uses Rodolfo as the voice of reason in this scene as he says ‘don’t do that!’ which is exactly what the audience are thinking but when he flies at him in attack’ things become even more complicated when Eddie ‘suddenly kisses him’. The audience have no idea why did does this until later on when he speaks to Alfieri and claims that ‘somebody that don’t want it can break it’. In his mind, this proves that Rodolfo is homosexual and he even expects Catherine to understand this as he asks her ‘you see'’ but she is as confused as the audience is. Alfieri, being the main voice of reason continuously throughout the play, suggests to us ‘It sounds as if he just wasn’t strong enough to break your grip’. As their conversation continues, Eddie becomes more frustrated as he angrily says ‘Didn’t you hear what I told you'’ – he still cannot see that he is wrong and as Alfieri says ‘his eyes were like tunnels’ suggesting he has tunnel vision and will not back down as he thinks he is right. This frustration leads him to go against everything he believes in and he calls immigration as he feels there is nothing else he can do. He has been blinded by the strength of the love he feels for Catherine and he doesn’t realise what he’s done until he arrives home. As he walks home Louis asks, ‘goin’ bowling Eddie'’. Miller has used this to show what Eddie has just given up. When Eddie arrives home, he and the audience realise that, had he not just called immigration, everything could have gone back to normal eventually as Beatrice says ‘Now we gonna be like it never happened, that’s all’. At this point, Eddie starts to regret what he has just done and becomes obsessed with gaining his ‘respect’ from Beatrice because he knows that he is about to lose it from everyone else. As the scene continues, when immigration come for Marco and Rodolfo, everyone realises what Eddie has done and as Marco warned earlier, if anything happened to Rodolfo, he would hurt whoever hurt him. Eddie realises this, but as he has lost all his respect from everyone but Beatrice whose ‘final thrust is to turn towards him’. Eddie knows that he will not win in a fight against Marco but he takes the knife towards Marco irregardless. Miller does this to show that Eddie realises that he is either going to kill Marco and eventually manage to gain his respect back or he is going to be killed because at this point he feels as though he needs ‘his name’ to live, otherwise he would rather literally die in shame. The real tragedy is that it is only at the very end when he says ‘My B’ that he realises that his love for Beatrice was what really mattered to him the most all along. We also see that Catherine, even though he hurt and embarrassed her, still loves Eddie as she says ‘ Eddie, I never meant to do nothing bad to you.’ The tragedy of the story is that Catherine’s naivety towards Eddie made him feel a certain way about her. The love between them deepens throughout the play and when their true feelings towards each other are revealed, the audience can do nothing but watch in horror as what could have been resolved, leads to the inevitable death of Eddie due to his inability to compromise and love for Catherine. The audience see that as Catherine grows apart from Eddie, he fights for her back which drives her even further away and this vicious circle was always going to lead to the cruel and tragic twist of fate of Eddie dying in the arms of the woman he loved from the very beginning.