1. A View from the Bridge
Theme: LOVE
dominic.fung
2. Deals with the theme of love in different ways.
•Father-daughter love
•Brotherly love
•Unnatural (incestuous) love
•Romantic love
•Married love
•Love of a place
•Love of family
3. Father-daughter love
✓ Eddie and Catherine, although uncle and niece, have become more like a father and daughter. Eddie made
a lot of sacrifices to provide Catherine with the best education he could.
✓ 'Eddie: I supported you this long I support you a little more...I want you to be in a nice office.'
✓ Catherine loves and treats him as her father, and when Beatrice tells her to change her attitudes towards
him, she is shocked and desperate, and is ʻat the verge of tears, as though a familiar world had
shattered.ʼ [Stage Direction]
✓ ʻBeatrice: you gotta be your own self more. You still think youʼre a little girl, honey...You gotta give him to
understand that he canʼt give you orders no more...you canʼt act the way you act. You still walk around in
front of him in your slip - ʼ
avuncular: of or relating to an uncle; of or relating to the relationship between men and their siblingsʼ children
4. Brotherly love
✓ Marco and Rodolpho have a strong bond - great enough for Marco to challenge Eddie for threatening
Rodolpho. Up to the end of Act I, Marco has been very grateful of Eddie for providing him accomodation.
However, he stands up for his brotherʼs cause.
✓ '[Stage Direction:] slowly raises the chair higher and higher...Marco raises the chair over his head. Marco is
face to face with Eddie, a strained tension gripping his eyes and jaw...the chair raised like a weapon over
Eddie's head...'
✓ After Eddie betrays the brothers to the Immigration Office, Marco is extremely infuriated at him, because
ʻ[h]e killed my children! That one stole the food from my children!ʼ Marco vows to have revenge on Eddie
and is shocked when he finds out the law prohibits him from killing Eddie.
✓ ʻMarco: rises, turns to Alfieri) The law? All the law is not in a book.ʼ
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✓ However, despite promising Alfieri of not attacking Eddie, he seeks out Eddie and results in killing him with
his own knife. He stands up to his codes of honour, namely the code of omertà.
5. Married love
✓ Eddie and Beatrice's marriage is obviously not as strong as it used to be:
Beatrice asks, 'When am I gonna be a wife again, Eddie?'
✓ They have not slept together for months. Beatrice sees sex with Eddie as part
of her key role as a wife. She is frustrated by Eddie's apparent attraction
towards Catherine and questions him about it. Their sexual life was interrupted
by Eddieʼs unnatural love for Catherine.
✓ Despite all the tragedy, Beatrice remains loyal to Eddie, and Eddie turns back to
Beatrice at the end when he is dying, and realizes all that he has done wrong.
✓ ʻEddie: Then why - Oh, B.!
✓ Beatrice: Yes, yes!
✓ Eddie: My B.!ʼ
6. Love of family
✓ Beatrice, Eddie and Catherine are first seen as a loving family. Beatrice acts as
the ʻlynchpinʼ of the family, vital to keeping it together.
✓ Marco loves his family deeply. He has come to America to help them. He misses
them a lot.
✓ 'Marco: My wife - she feeds them from her own mouth.'
✓ Beatrice loves her family in Sicily enough to support her cousins. Family ties are
very important. However, she remains loyal towards Eddie throughout the whole
play, despite knowing of his affection for their niece.
7. Romantic love
✓ Catherine falls in love with Rodolpho and their love is genuine and sincere.
✓ However, their love continues in spite of the tragedy happening around
them. This shows that the love is true and natural, and is difficult to affect.
Love of a place
✓ Rodolpho and Marco love their homeland, Sicily.
✓ Rodolpho also loves America. Catherine says, 'he's crazy for New York.'
8. Unnatural (incestuous) love
✓ Eddie's love for Catherine has become sexual, even though he refuses to admit it. This is
the cause of the friction in his own marriage and the dispute with Rodolpho and Marco.
✓ Eddie seems to be in love with Catherine but refuses to face this fact at any stage in the
play.
✓ 'Eddie: Katie you are walkin' wavy! I don't like the looks they're givin' you...The heads are
turnin' like windmills.'
✓ Audience wonders if Eddie's unresolved sexual attraction to Catherine makes it harder for
him to deal with the fact that other men are starting to find her attractive. He is being very
possessive and is afraid of all the attention the men are giving her, and he is jealous.
✓ ʻ[Stage Direction:] [Catherine] strikes a match and holds it to [Eddieʼs] cigar.ʼ
✓ This mentioning of the cigar can be seen as a phallic imagery, representing sexual desire
of Eddie towards Catherine.
9. ✓ 'Alfieri: I saw it was only a passion that had moved into his body, like a stranger.'
✓ 'Alfieri: there is too much love for the niece.'
✓ Alfieri is trying to help Eddie here, but Eddie sinks back into denial.
✓ 'Alfieri: She can't marry you can she?'
✓ 'Beatrice: You want somethin' else, Eddie, and you can never have her!'
✓ Alfieri brings out Eddieʼs true feelings and Beatrice clearly articulates Eddie's feelings,
revealing the secret he had been concealing all along. They have both pointed out
Eddie's taboo feelings in very direct ways.
✓ '[Stage Direction:] [Eddie] reaches out suddenly, draws [Catherine] to him, and as
[Catherine] strives to free herself [Eddie] kisses her on the mouth.'
✓ This makes it very clear of Eddie's feelings for Catherine, and it is his attempt to show
Rodolpho how a 'true man' kisses.
10. Love is responsible for all the conflict between the characters.
It is a deep passion that creates jealousy and causes pain both
to the person who loves, is loved and those around them.
For Eddie, love causes conflict within himself when he cannot
admit to and come to terms with his illicit, incestuous love for
Catherine.
This love gives rise to tragedy, where Eddie dies at the hands
of Marco. This is an inevitable fate in which the ʻbloody courseʼ
cannot be stopped.
11. Summary
•Father-daughter love
Eddie and Catherine
•Brotherly love
Rodolpho and Marco
•Unnatural (incestuous) love
Eddie and Catherine
•Romantic love
Catherine and Rodolpho
•Married love
Eddie and Beatrice
•Love of a place
Marco, Rodolpho and Sicily and America
•Love of family
Eddie, Beatrice and Catherine
Marco and family
Beatrice and Sicilian family
