A View from the Bridge Analysis

The story centers around the house of Eddie, a working man, husband to Beatrice and guardian of orphaned niece Catherine. Eddie is a man who prides himself on his name, and the respect he receives from all those around him. However, following Catherine's offer of employment, and the arrival of two of Beatrice's cousins from Italy the illegal immigrants Marco and Rodolpho), Eddie's role as master of his house is continually questioned. Soon, Eddie's leading status, both inside and outside the family, disintegrates at his touch, as we become aware of the obsessive love he feels for Catherine. His denial of this truth causes to be his own destruction.

Eddie wants justice for himself; he takes his troubles to the law of the land to try and help him find a way to get Rodolfo because he doesn't want him to marry Catherine but once he gets to Alfieri he discovers that there is nothing the law can do to help him. His only option is to tell the authorities about Rodolfo being an illegal immigrant. Because there's nothing illegal about a girl falling in love with an immigrant.

Justice would allow Eddie to sort out his problem with Rodolfo and Catherine, but justice is just a theory, it is what people believe but it isn't he law. The law can take peoples justice away; in this case the law couldn't help Eddie and justice remained.

When Eddie finds that the law can help him, he turns to justice and pride. Eddie tries to embarrass Rodolfo, he feels that if he embarrasses Rodolfo then he is proving a point to Catherine, that she will see that Rodolfo isn't a man.

Eddie challenges Rodolfo to punch him, like a boxer. Rodolfo hits him mildly, but this gives Eddie a reason to hit back. Eddie hit Rodolfo to show his superiority over him, that he was better and deserved Catherine for himself.

“I didn't hurt him. Did I hurt you kid?”

Eddie tries to make it seem as if he was only playing and that he didn't really mean to hurt him. This is obvious to us as a reader that he did it intentionally to gain respect and show his authority.

In the Italian way, Marco retaliates. He doesn't want to be left looking like that weak one, Rodolfo is family and therefore anything that happens to Rodolfo is happening to him. This is why Marco takes the chair and throws it at Eddie to gain the respect back, that his brother just lost.

Losing his respect to Marco and Rodolfo was the last straw for Eddie, this had 1ade his decision for him, so he went back to Alfieri to see again, if there was anything the law could do.

“Morally and legally you have no rights,

You cannot stop it; she is a free agent.”

Alfieri is no help to Eddie, the only advice he can offer Eddie is to let Catherine go, this isn't Eddie's idea of justice. Eddie believes that a guy who ‘aint right’, in his words should not marry a girl who is normal (or better than normal like Catherine, in his opinion).

Marco also wants justice for himself. “In Italy a man like that would be dead by now.” This tells us that the Italian/Sicilian version of Justice is very different from the Americna version. He is a (according to Alfieri and other characters) a “very honorable man”, and yet, ironically he arrived to America illegally. The audience and readers of the book do not care very much about the fact that he is an illegal immigrant, as they pity him, but the characters in the book (for example Eddie) is very aware of that fact.

It is totally out of Eddie's character to go to the immigration authorities, at this time in the play he would not even think about it, but he is later driven to it by what he feels to be a personal tragedy on an epic scale. This tells us that when Eddie informs the authorities he knows exactly what effect this will have on him; he knows of his inevitable fate after word gets out. The Sicilian values of justice are totally separate and exempt from American law. In some ways it is more lenient; it does not condemn Marco for killing Eddie because of two things; firstly, Eddie reported him to the authorities, and secondly, he won in a fair duel. Nevertheless, as we see, its sentences are far harsher.