A View from the Bridge: Characters (Edexcel IGCSE English Literature)

Characters

Miller’s characters each represent different facets of the Italian-American community, and the relationships between them shed light on the prevalent themes of the text. When revising A View from the Bridge, try to focus not only on the key traits of each character but also on how they interact. Below you will find character profiles of:

• Eddie

• Beatrice

• Catherine

• Rodolpho

• Marco

• Alfieri

Eddie

• Eddie Carbone is a longshoreman of Italian immigrant stock whose job it is to load and unload boats in the Brooklyn shipyards:

  • He is the tragic hero of the play: the protagonist who makes mistakes that lead to his inexorable unravelling

  • His social position makes him a relatable “everyman” in whom the audience might see something of themselves:

    • The empathy that we feel for him only makes his downfall all the more tragic

• He is a dedicated family man:

  • He clearly sees it as “an honor” to take in Beatrice’s cousins, and sees it as “savin’ their lives”

  • Catherine tells Rodolpho that Eddie can be warm and generous, but we rarely see him when he is not in conflict with other characters

  • Eddie’s relationship with Beatrice is struggling: at the start of the play, the two have not been intimate in “three months”:

    • It is implied that Eddie’s interest in Catherine is coming between him and Beatrice

• Although Eddie loves Catherine, he is overprotective of his niece to the detriment of their relationship:

  • In the very first scene we see him seek to control Catherine’s behaviour, appearance, and even her job

  • When Catherine begins to spend more time with Rodolpho he becomes fiercely jealous of the young man for “stealing” her

  • His emotions towards Catherine are deeply confused, and he lacks the self-awareness and the vocabulary to properly navigate them

  • At times, he seems to view Catherine as a helpless child, while elsewhere his feelings may be considered incestuous:

    • His reference in Act I to the ways that “longshoremen” might look at Catherine suggests that he is not beyond viewing her as sexually desirable

    • In Act II he kisses Catherine on the mouth as though to claim her from Rodolpho

    • Beatrice seems aware of Eddie’s possible desires even if Eddie himself is not: she tells him in Act II that he “can never have her”

• He has a strong sense of justice, and his discussions with Alfieri highlight the distinction between justice and the law, a central theme of the play:

  • It is clear from the way that he and Beatrice tell the story of Vinny Bolzano that they agree with the way that the young man was treated:

    • Bolzano “snitched to the Immigration” and was made an outcast from the Italian-American community

    • This story foreshadows Eddie’s own fate, as he ultimately loses the respect of all who know him when he makes the same decision as Bolzano

  • Eddie believes that Rodolpho’s relationship with Catherine is unjust, but Alfieri makes clear that Eddie has no recourse in law

  • When his relationship with Catherine is threatened, Eddie breaks his own code of honour by betraying Marco and Rodolpho to the Immigration Bureau:

    • This act reveals that Eddie’s tragic flaw, or hamartia, is blind self-interest at the cost of his own principles

Beatrice

• Beatrice is Eddie’s wife, Catherine’s aunt by marriage, and cousin of Marco and Rodolpho:

  • Beatrice, not Eddie, has helped to arrange Marco and Rodolpho coming across illegally from Italy, demonstrating commendable dedication to her family:

    • Her involvement – and Eddie’s temperament – means that she will blame herself if something goes wrong: “I’m just afraid if it don’t turn out good you’ll be mad at me”

• Beatrice is loving and caring throughout the play, even in difficult emotional situations:

  • She calls Eddie “an angel” when he expresses willingness to take in Marco and Rodolpho

  • She celebrates Catherine’s achievements, telling Eddie that Catherine’s prospective employer “picked her out of the whole class”

  • She convinces Eddie to let Catherine accept the job offer using language that Eddie understands: “it’s an honor for her”

  • She is immediately affectionate towards Marco and Rodolpho 

  • Beatrice is maternal and compassionate towards Catherine even as she warns her niece not to behave inappropriately around Eddie:

    • Not wanting to hurt Catherine’s feelings, she is quick to reassure Catherine that she is not jealous

• Beatrice plays the role of the mediator when Eddie creates uncomfortable or hostile situations:

  • She protects Catherine from Eddie’s anger at the end of Act I by openly telling her niece to dance with Rodolpho, rather than risking Catherine deciding to do so unprompted

  • Beatrice stands up for Catherine by gently ridiculing Eddie’s concerns about the new job: “She likes people. What’s wrong with that?”

• She is the first to warn Eddie that his behaviour towards Catherine has become unacceptable:

  • As Eddie waits for Rodolpho and Catherine to return from the pictures, Beatrice tells him that “The girl is gonna be eighteen years old, it’s time already”

  • Later she is even more explicit about the true nature of Eddie’s problem with Rodolpho and Catherine: “You want somethin’ else, Eddie, and you can never have her!”

• She is selfless, and makes sacrifices to try to keep the peace:

  • She refuses to attend Catherine’s wedding out of love for Eddie

  • She is willing to confront an awful truth if it saves Eddie’s soul: “The truth is not as bad as blood, Eddie!”

Catherine

• Catherine is Eddie’s seventeen-year-old niece, an attractive, lively girl who Eddie and Beatrice have looked after since she was a baby:

  • Although she considers Eddie and Beatrice to be her parents, she only ever addresses both by their first names:

    • It is likely that this semantic distancing makes it harder for Eddie to determine where the boundaries are in their relationship

• Catherine genuinely loves her uncle, and she seems to understand him in ways that other characters do not:

  • She tells Rodolpho that she can “tell a block away” when Eddie is “blue in his mind”

  • She also privately believes that the tension between Beatrice and Eddie is Beatrice’s fault for “goin’ at him all the time”

  • Naively, though, she does not suspect that Eddie might view her sexually until it is too late:

    • When Beatrice raises the idea in Act II, Catherine reacts with “horror”

• Catherine is a talented stenographer, about to start her first job despite Eddie’s objections:

  • She was chosen by her new employer after being at the top of her class

  • The early interaction between Eddie and Catherine about her job exemplifies a crucial facet of their relationship, which is that nothing that Catherine does is good enough for Eddie:

    • Eddie would rather that Catherine worked at “a lawyer’s office someplace in New York in one of them nice buildings”

  • Beatrice tells Eddie that Catherine is “crazy to start work”:

    • Her desperation suggests that Catherine yearns for some independence after living under Eddie’s control all of her life

• When Rodolpho arrives, Catherine is immediately attracted to him because of his sense of humour, his warmth and his musical talent:

  • Miller’s stage directions make clear that Catherine is “enthralled” by Rodolpho’s singing in Act I

  • In her first words to Rodolpho she speaks “wondrously”, seemingly enraptured from their first interaction 

  • The relationship between Catherine and Rodolpho develops into an intense love that sees Catherine forced to choose between Rodolpho and Eddie

• Catherine demonstrates impressive strength of character when she sides with Rodolpho against the man who raised her:

  • At the end of Act I Catherine asks Rodolpho to dance in an act of “revolt”

  • She shows her independence again at the start of Act II when she chooses Rodolpho over Eddie:

    • Inspired by Rodolpho, she makes the decision to leave home, telling Eddie that “I just can’t stay here no more. You know I can’t”

  • Catherine’s respect for Eddie turns to hate and loathing by the end of the play:

    • She is independent enough in Act II to call Eddie a “rat” who “belongs in the sewer” to his face

• However, as Eddie dies at the very end of the play she retracts her words and expresses regret:

  • She murmurs that “I never meant to do nothing bad to you”, although we can never know whether Eddie truly believes her

Rodolpho

• An attractive young man who arrives in the country illegally, Rodolpho has a lively sense of humour and makes an immediate and positive impact on the play:

  • His blonde hair and extroverted personality make him stand apart immediately on the stage:

    • His appearance and behaviour make him an attractive, likeable counterpoint to the stereotypically masculine Eddie

  • He also appears to be popular with the other longshoremen – something that Eddie misinterprets as his co-workers mocking Rodolpho:

    • By highlighting how easily Rodolpho is accepted by the other workers, Miller makes the point that traditional concepts of masculinity can co-exist with more modern, forward-thinking sensibilities

• Unlike his older brother Marco, Rodolpho is entranced by America and would enjoy being an American citizen:

  • He displays a palpable sense of wonder when describing Broadway and “where theatres are and the opera” 

  • Marco describes Rodolpho as a free spirit: “he dreams, he dreams”

  • He wants to save money to buy a motorcycle so that he can travel around delivering messages:

    • This suggests a romantic sense of adventure, and a desire to break free of social expectations: a man with a motorcycle “is responsible. This man exists”

  • Eddie uses Rodolpho’s fascination with American culture against him by telling Catherine that Rodolpho is only using her to become an American citizen

• Rodolpho is multi-talented: he can cook, sing and make clothes:

  • Eddie’s distaste for Rodolpho’s talents is obvious from the moment he interrupts Rodolpho’s song in Act I

• Rodolpho’s love for Catherine is genuine and powerful:

  • Rodolpho demonstrates genuine compassion in his interaction with Catherine at the start of Act II:

    • He likens her relationship with Eddie to a trapped bird – an image that suggests that he values her freedom as much as she does

    • The tenderness of his physical interactions with Catherine contrasts greatly with Eddie’s display of sexual violence moments later

    • He is at pains to reassure Catherine that he truly cares for her, despite what Eddie believes

  • He nevertheless addresses Catherine with infantilizing language on occasion 

• At the end of the play he tries to keep the peace by apologising to Eddie despite being completely innocent:

  • In doing this, Rodolpho might be seen as settling “for half”, making a compromise for the greater good

  • Eddie refuses to accept the lifeline that Rodolpho offers in a final moment of bleak contrast

Marco

• Marco, Rodolpho’s older brother, is very much strong yet reserved and only feels compelled to make his feelings known when he senses that an injustice has occurred:

  • Marco says and does less than other characters, but his actions are among the most significant and impactful in the play:

    • He does not speak in defence of Rodolpho when Eddie punches his brother at the end of Act I, but the stage direction to Marco is powerful in its simplicity: “Marco rises.”

    • When he lifts the chair to end the Act, he demonstrates his superior strength (and the danger that he poses to Eddie) with the absolute minimum of speech

    • He performs this act while “face to face with Eddie”, turning an innocent gesture into something almost threatening

    • In Act II, he accuses Eddie of contacting the Immigration Bureau and shows his disgust for him with one act: “Marco spits into Eddie’s face”

• Unlike his brother, Marco does not seek adventure or hope to achieve a dream – he wishes only to support his family:

  • His journey to America is a necessary sacrifice that shows his love for his family:

    • Marco tells Eddie that his children are so hungry that “They eat the sunshine”

    • Our knowledge of Marco’s family in Italy makes Eddie’s betrayal in Act II all the more reprehensible – by getting Marco sent home, he may have indirectly starved Marco’s children 

• Marco has a strong sense of justice and sees revenge as a moral right despite the constraints of the law:

  • He tells Alfieri that Eddie would be killed in Italy for his actions

  • He insists that real justice is about more than is written in Alfieri’s “book”

  • Marco lies to Alfieri to secure his release from prison, clearly seeing his entitlement to justice as outweighing the lesser sin of deceit

• He kills Eddie by turning Eddie’s own knife on him:

  • The audience does not know whether Marco would have murdered Eddie had Eddie not pulled out the knife

  • While his murder of Eddie may be seen as self-defence, he shows no regret at the play’s end

Alfieri

• Alfieri is a Brooklyn lawyer who serves as a narrator and commentator as well as a character in the play; he bridges the divide between the audience and the characters:

  • He speaks directly to the audience (“you”) and, in amicable fashion, as a friendly authority on the events of the play

  • In his opening speech he reveals that he came from Italy to practise law in America when he was a young man:

    • He is therefore able to comment on the action of the play from the perspectives of both the Italian-American community and also the American legal system

  • His role is to oversee the action of the play and remain objective throughout:

    • His objectivity is tested, though: he wishes that he could have stepped in to prevent Eddie’s tragic downfall, but had no legal power to do so

• He places the events of the drama into geographical, historical and chronological context: 

  • His opening speech establishes the Red Hook setting and gives the audience a sense of the location’s atmosphere and character

  • He likens the events of the tragedy to a classical tragedy set in “Syracuse” or “Calabria”, imbuing the Brooklyn slums with a sense of grandeur

  • Alfieri’s interjections throughout the play allow Miller to move time by hours, days and weeks:

    • This creates the sense of Eddie’s slow but inevitable moral deterioration while keeping the narrative moving at a brisk pace

• Alfieri’s message to the audience, which he repeats at the beginning and the end of the play, is that it is better to “settle for half” than to seek complete justice:

  • This is because the search for absolute justice sometimes results in unacceptable, awful consequences

  • He makes the same point to both Eddie and Marco when they visit him in his office, but neither is able to accept the wisdom of what he says:

    • Eddie and Marco opt for absolute justice instead of accepting moral compromise, setting them both on track to a fatal conclusion 

• His final message to the audience asks us to question whether we might sympathise with Eddie, even after his heinous actions:

  • Even Alfieri, with his full and objective understanding of the issues at play, sees something admirable in Eddie’s honesty:

    • His own admission that he mourns Eddie, though, causes him some “alarm”

Sources 

Miller, A. (2010). A View From the Bridge. Penguin.