“A view from the bridge” is a gripping play written by American playwright Arthur Miller in 1955. This piece of art shows many aspects of the work of the human psyche, illustrates the nature of negative human feelings, and concerns how justice and law are applied. The main characters of the play are an Italian stevedore, Eddie Carbone, his wife Beatrice, her orphaned niece Catherine, two cousins, brothers Marco and Rodolpho, Italian immigrants, and Alfieri, a well-educated lawyer.
Eddie is a very controversial character, who is a good man, but at the same time, acts in general only in his favor to take advantage and does not listen and respect others’ needs. From the very beginning of the play, he shows himself as a highly protective person who allows himself to order Catherine on how she has to live. He tells her what she has to do and how she has to look and expresses his dislike of her interest in men. Eddie does not want Catherine to take the job opportunity she wants until she finishes her coursework: this is highly selfish because every human has a right to choose what to do with their lives. For the rest of the plot, the man tries to hold her and other Beatrice’s family members from living a calm and peaceful life.
People do not have to feel sympathy for him: he is only self-centered and always wants to prove his innocence, overlooking others. He is unhealthily obsessed with Catherine, tries to live her life, and holds her from dreams and desires. That was extremely rude to attempt to kiss Rodolpho to prove his homosexuality and especially to kiss Catherine, showing that she is an independent woman and can do whatever she wants. Of course, from the point of view that Eddie is in love with her and it is hard to take control over such type of feelings, the attitude towards him can be more lenient. However, he forgets he has a wife and that Catherine is her niece. In addition, his deeds caused inconvenience to everybody and were inappropriate.
Alfieri once said, “Only God makes justice…” and he has a point. His phrase was aimed to prevent Marco from taking the law into his own hands in the second act. However, he was powerless to change anything: what happened was inevitable. No law would stop Eddie and Marco from confronting and scuffling. Alfieri’s phrase is fair and makes a lot of sense: humans can revenge on somebody in an attempt to make justice; however, they will have consequences for that. Every human being has no idea what is going on on other person’s mind and soul. Maybe, Eddie was mentally ill, and this was his strategy to fight it. Indeed, God will figure this out, and only he knows what will be with Eddie. Even though his behavior was destructive and he was not innocent, Marco did not have to sin, killing him. Now, this blood is on Marco’s hands, and he will live realizing that he killed a person.
Beatrice once said, “Whatever happened, we all done it.” and this phrase is not accurate. Probably, everyone had their role in everything that was going on, and everyone contributed to it. However, there was just one person, who strongly misbehaved, and it was Eddie. Everybody else was trying to protect themselves and even had a tolerant and polite attitude toward the man. Unfortunately, circumstances were not in anybody’s favor, and there was no one to blame or accuse of everything that happened.