Eddie Carbone

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Arthur Miller is an American playwright who produced the play ‘A View from the Bridge’. The play is set in an Italian-American neighborhood called Red Hook, a slum area, in New York at the Brooklyn Bridge Eddie, the play's protagonist, is a man who drives his own life to doom due to his inappropriate feelings for his niece, which is the primary reason for his downfall. Miller conveys the development of the character of Eddie Carbone through language and the key themes along with stage directions.
Tension is initiated in the play by the language used like exclamatory and interrogative sentences. Eddie’s family is presented as an average family. When Catherine, Eddie’s niece, decides to work as a stenographer, his over-protective qualities start …show more content…

They play the role of the antagonists; however, Miller’s unique style of writing makes the audience feel empathy for the antagonists rather than the protagonist. Eddie claims that the cousins, or at least one of them, is too strange and perhaps seems homosexual "The guy ain't right". Eddie is a strong father figure for Catherine and very protective of her "I took out of my own mouth to give her; i took out of my own mouth". Eddie's love and care for Catherine appears to be obsessive and possessive, thus the introduction of a new male stereotype creates a kind of threat to this unrequited love. Eddie blames Rodolpho specifically with these attributes to ensconce his real feelings that he is aware of and feels that they are wrong, and wrong inside him in a way he can’t face. The moment when Eddie was sure that Catherine fell for Rodolpho he consults a lawyer and provides him explanations to prove his point "...the only reason for it is to get his papers". The stage directions-he's coming more and more to address Marco only suggest that Eddie's distrust for Rodolpho grows more and foreshadows the fight at the end of Act 1 where he responds verbally to test his masculinity “' did I hurt you, kid?'’, Miller introduces the key theme of masculinity here. What Eddie meant by “to get his papers” is a strong indication of the state of the cousins and a point of turn in the …show more content…

Here, Miller points out the change in Eddie's nature as compared to the start of the play. Eddie at that point was advised that “a river will drown you if you buck it now”. Every time someone tries to break Eddie's wall of denial he gets angry, and in this case, Eddie decided to call the Immigration Bureau to report the two brothers. Two types of law are portrayed in this scene; Eddie obeyed the American law when he reported the illegal immigrants but betrayed the Italian law by snitching on his own family This caused him to lose his respect in his neighborhood "That one! I accuse that one!" Marco Spits into Eddie's face, family and friends "how can you listen to him? This rat!" and eventually gets stabbed by his own knife in public in a fight with Marco. Very strong language is used in the last quotation. "Rat" is a metaphor used by Catherine to emphasize his betrayal of the moral (Italian) law, thus degrading him further. Miller shows how betrayal has ultimate consequences for the self, family (by losing Beatrice’s trust) and

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