A View From the Bridge by Arthur Miller: the Internal Struggle of the Protagonist's Jealousy

A View from the Bridge by Arthur Miller is a tragic play inspired by his research conducted in 1947 on a longshoreman, whose story, now is presented through the character of Eddie Carbone; a tragic hero, whose own internal struggle of jealousy self-inflicts and results in his tragic fate. The beginning of the play insights the audience into his relationship with those in his own home. We are introduced to his devoted wife Beatrice and his 17-year-old niece Catherine and their life in mid-century Red Hook along the sea-wood side of Brooklyn Bridge. The play consists of two great secrets that mark Eddie's downfall, one being the cousins; Rodolpho and Marco's status as illegal immigrants, but also the feelings which Eddie subconsciously possesses towards Catherine. As a tragic hero, the play creates a mixture of opinions towards him, the character of Eddie and both his personality and physical actions create criticism due to his jealousy concerning Rodolpho, derived from his unnatural feelings towards Catherine. Yet due to the inclusion of Alfieri the narrator, an insight into Eddie's reasons for such questionable actions can be explained and create a change of perspective amongst the audience.

Miller's dramatic presentation of Eddie invites both criticism and sympathy through Eddie's feelings for Catherine which, in turn, enforces a tear in his marriage with Beatrice.

The relationship between Eddie and Catherine is presented as an ordinary family dynamic, despite concern over his evident dominance. He clearly counsels her over the way she both dresses and acts, through his supposed fear of the actions of men, despite his clear enrapture towards her beauty. The confirmation that their relationship suggests more intimacy than the one, is presented by Miller through their stage directions in Act 1. An example of intimacy is when Catherine ‘lights a match and holds it to his cigar’. This makes not only her naivety evident, but the clear interpretation of the symbol created is one of the sexual undertones. Evidently, Eddie's infatuation with Catherine plays a toll on his devotion to Beatrice, with her openly addressing his lack of affection. She does this by asking Eddie ‘when will I be a wife again?’. The connotations of this quote show the effects that Eddie's feelings for Catherine have on his marital relationship, with the suggestion that there was once a time where Eddie's subconscious wasn't intertwined with the thoughts of Catherine. As well as the word ‘wife’ suggests that not only the legal side of their relationship has left, due to his feelings of incest, but also the physical side of their marriage has gone. This clearly generates sympathy towards Beatrice, but we cannot help and criticize Eddie who dismisses his wife's plea to rekindle their intimacy, despite their clear affection at the beginning of the play. Miller presents their loving relationship in the beginning through figurative language, particularly when Beatrice says ‘You’re an angel! God'll bless you'. Not only does the use of an exclamation mark show her pure gratitude towards Eddie's hospitality, but the quote reinforces the clear change in dynamics between Eddie and Beatrice later on in the play. Yet contrasting to how we criticized Eddie regarding his relationship with Beatrice, we find ourselves sympathizing with him in his ending moments. Miller creates this sudden perspective change through Eddies ending dialogue and stage directions, where Eddie says, ‘My B and ’dies in her arms'. To the audience, we see where Eddie's true loyalties finally lie, as throughout the novel we were presented with countless examples of Eddie's un-devoted feelings towards his wife Beatrice and instead see him remain subconsciously infatuated with Catherine. Yet at this pivotal moment in the play something that us as an audience has criticized Eddie on relentlessly, is now be contradicted with a realization that Eddie has regained a sense of devotion for his wife.

Through Eddie's verbal dialogue and physical actions concerning the dynamic, he shares with the cousin; Miller can obtain criticism through Eddie's surge for dominance.

The dynamic of the physical arrival of the cousins is already tense, simply due to the legality of their immigration, as well as the inclusion of the previous scene that foreshadows both into the arrival of the cousins but also the colloquial code of honor that is required from the whole household to maintain the cousins stay. The previous scene discusses Vinny Bolzano a kid who ‘snitched on his own uncle’, through Eddie's informal language we get a sense of Vinny's reputation as well as the consequences of breaking that trust. This story allows the audience to connotate the entrance of the cousins with that code of honor and this foreshadows the evidential dynamic between Eddie and the cousins as a consequence of Eddie's physical and verbal actions. On top of the initial tension created by those things, Eddie's jealous character comes to light when Catherine shows interest in Rodolpho. She simply does this by commenting on his hair saying, ‘he’s practically blond'.

As an audience, we are aware of Eddie's feelings towards Catherine and the criticism that creates is evident but as Eddie starts to physically and verbally present his jealousy and possessiveness over her, the criticism towards his character increases. He subtly creates countless excuses that would result in Catherine's feelings for Rodolpho to extinguish. His main criticism is Rodolpho's masculinity and compares that to Eddie's own masculinity, at the end of act one where Catherine hesitantly dances with an eager Rodolpho we see Eddie repeating 3 times ‘if I could make dresses, I wouldn’t be on the waterfront, I would be someplace else. I would be like in a dress store' he is desperately but subtly trying to hint that Rodolpho doesn't fit the superficial masculine identity and thus is a reason why Catherine shouldn't marry him. Yet the subtext of this is simply Eddie's jealousy shining through and as the audience, we see his stage directions ‘unconsciously twisting the newspaper’ this presents his very physical reaction and invites criticism as he is not only presenting inappropriate feelings and jealousy for his niece but also trying to thwart her relationship. The theme of masculinity and respect maintains throughout the rest of the play and as an audience we slowly see Eddie be stripped of that, through actions and dialogue from surrounding characters. Immediately after the dance takes place, Eddie feeling vulnerable teaches Rodolpho how to box. A climax of tension is immediately reached as Eddie's superiority increases after he punches Rodolpho but is quickly dismissed after Rodolpho simply says with a smile ‘no-no he didn’t hurt me'. Despite Eddie's physical strength over Rodolpho, he is no match for Marco, who challenges Eddie after being disheartened by his behavior towards his brother. Marco submits the task of lifting a chair from the base with one hand, which Eddie fails instantly but with strength, Marco completes the task. In such a short period, Eddie went from masculine superiority regarding Rodolpho, a clear opponent for him, to being overpowered by Marco's strength and in a sense being stripped of his own. After this Eddie is driven to extreme lengths to regain back that power and consequentially reports the brothers to immigration leaving him in a state of a pyrrhic victory.

Through the employment of Alfeirs narrative over Eddie's actions and feelings, as well as his personal perspective, Miller creates sympathy for Eddie.

Miller was inspired by Greek playwrights and employed Alfieri to act as a chorus, similar to how in Greek tragedies the chorus comments on the play. The narrator Alfieri's role is to almost defend or explain Eddie's actions and paint him as a ‘tragic hero’, much like a typical Greek tragedy for example the character Oedipus created by Aristotle. By Miller deploying Alfieri, it has allowed sympathy to be created for a character that would be dismissed as an antagonist, due to his negative traits such as jealousy and physical aggression which are seen throughout the play. From the beginning of the play when we are introduced to Eddie, we are already foreshadowed by Alfieri to Eddie's inevitable yet tragic fate through the simple line ‘this one’s name was Eddie Carbone'. Through Millers' use of the past tense, the audience feels sympathetic to Eddie's helplessness concerning his destiny, something which Eddie ‘never expected to have’. Another way that sympathy is created is through the quote ‘His eyes were like tunnels; my first thought was that he had committed a crime, but soon I saw it was only a passion that had moved into his body, like a stranger’, through this Alfieri describes Eddie's appearance after their first formal meeting. Through Alfieri's metaphorical language we get a paranormal suggestion concerning Eddie's state. The ‘passion’ which Alfieri is describing is in reference to his niece, yet all of that passion is suppressed into his subconscious and like Alfieri indicated his attraction to his niece is ‘like a stranger’. This leaves his conscious self to retaliate against those subconscious thoughts of incest with fears of his true feelings being exposed and the world he exists in to retract the authoritarian figurine which he has chosen to present himself as.

Regarding Eddie's ending tragedy of death Alfieri captivates unexpected sympathy from the audience in his ending speech where he says, ‘For he allowed himself to be wholly known and for that, I think I will love him more than all my sensible clients’. However critical one may be of Eddie's character and his actions; Alfieri highlights the braveness which Eddie presents through revealing his whole character which despite the admiration this acquires in a way it is what killed him. What miller suggests is that everyone endures self-destructive behaviors but society around us has taught people not to act on them, yet Eddie is unaware of his inappropriate desires and thus acts on them causing his own destruct.

Miller's dramatic presentation of Eddie allows the audience to create their own opinions and perspectives on him through his feelings and actions presented. Whether that is criticism or sympathy, Miller has achieved in creating such a character where such an antithesis of feelings can be aligned with Eddie. The play was always about how Eddie Carbone would come to his tragic death not the possibility of it and due to the structure of the play we are aware of that right from the beginning when Alfieri foreshadows his fate. The striking thing about Eddie is that magnitude of his mistakes should have been evident to him when he reported the cousins to immigration, but his brain is so overwhelmed and intertwined with his love for Catherine that he cannot help but give in to them. His inner conflict is what leads him into conflict with all the other characters ‘ it is the source of the play’s central problem. He struggles to prevent the inevitable of Catherine leaving his protection and through this, he invites a slither of sympathy as the audience can identify Eddie as someone who's struggled with the idea of being out of control. Yet the significance of his character is that he is simply a ‘husky, slightly overweight longshoreman’, and compared to typical Greek tragic heroes he simply doesn't equivalate to their lifestyles. 

Nevertheless, this is what drops the barrio between the audience and Eddie as Miller has created a character that parallels a realistic human, it's only Eddie's own internal struggles of jealousy and dominance derived from his incestuous feelings for Catherine that separates him from mankind. That is why sympathy can be derived for a character like him and through the input of Alfieri, the humanization of his actions allows the audience to see reason. Despite all this, he is still a character with many flaws, and through Millers' dramatic presentation of his blatant disregard of those affected around him, the invitation for criticism is achieved. I personally sympathize with such a tragic character simply as his limited intellect and understanding of his own subconscious led him to a helpless state and death.