Passion as a Governing Factor in Eddie Carbon’s Death in Arthur Miller’sA View From the Bridge

Abstract

Eddie Carbone is protective and helpfulin the beginningto his relatives who areItalian immigrantssuch asMarco and Rodolpho. In spite of his wife,Beatrice’s warning time and again, Eddie pays much attention to Catherine, his niece andshows Rodolpho and Marcoofviolating a code of behaviour with whichhe has previously identified himself. Eddie, an ordinary longshoreman is unconsciously in love with his niece--the daughter of his wife’s dead sister. Eddie does not understand why he opposes the marriage between Catherine and Rodolpho violently, nor do any of the other people who are involved. But Eddie’s real motive is the undeclared, unrecognized, unappeased hunger he has for Catherine himself and he topples the whole house down on himself in the catastrophic partof the play. Actually, Freudian Idbestrides Eddie Carbon’s being. His violent attitude stems from the overridingof his self by theIdpart of the mind.