Manliness, hostility and aggression in the play.
Arthur Miller’s “A View From The Bridge” is a story about a man called Eddie who because of his jealousy caused by his idea of manliness, through hostility and aggression, led to his unpredictable death. Rodolpho and Marco are brothers, illegal immigrants in Brooklyn New York. They went there to find work, Eddie housed them because of their family ties with his.
Eddie thinks that a real man should be strong, tough and mean. The appearance of a man should be with dark features and big size. He thinks that a real man should be like him, the breadwinner who works hard, doing work that uses muscle and not much brain. He perhaps also thinks that a man would always look at a pretty woman in a sexual way rather than just another person, this is shown when he says there are “bad men” at Catherine’s workplace. His Sicilian background probably is a factor that leads him to his views of being manly; he believes that the leader of the house should have control of other family members’ actions.
When Catherine starts growing up Eddie feels that she is not under is control anymore and therefore cannot protect her. At the start of t

Eddie walked into his death blindly not seeing it because of a built up frustration over a long period of time and his personal need of claiming his name. He couldn’t predict what would happen and wasn’t able to assess his opponent Marco in such a short time give to release his anger, however he was prepared for any circumstance since he had a knife with him. His ideas of manliness clouded his common sense therefore the already hostile situation between him and Rodolpho turned into anger against Marco’s action.

Arthur Miller having seen somebody in the same situation as Eddie thinks that this could achieve a great storyline, being born by different ideas of the same principal, manliness. He obviously isn’t like Eddie because he is a well educated man and his book seems to support the idea of talking things through before taking actions, and the open mindedness of men who are slightly less manly than the stereotypical view of what a man should be- he has different views of manliness than Eddie. By writing this play he shows the viewers that an idea (manliness) could be used as an excuse to block off other feelings (fondness) and to act in a certain way towards another person (Rodolpho or Marco)

When Beatrice tries to confront him about his obvious dislike of him, he repeats his excuses of Rodolpho being “no good” and “ain’t right”. Beatrice’s relationship has always been one of a wife. Beatrice seems to be always taking Rodolpho and Catherine’s side as she could have already figured out Eddie’s real feelings towards Catherine from the start. He pushes her aside a number of times and ignores her constant pleads of changing his attitude towards Catherine, “I’ve told you a hundred times”.