A View From The Bridge Obsession Essay

‘A View from the Bridge’, by Arthur Miller, is a play which explores the theme of obsession. Set in 1940s Brooklyn, the play is based upon the lives of the Carbone family and, in particular, focuses upon longshoreman Eddie Carbone’s unhealthy obsession with his seventeen year old niece Catherine. A modern version of a Greek tragedy, the play charts Eddie’s downfall, ending with his tragic demise. Throughout the play, Miller makes effective use of characterisation and key scene to encourage the audience to reflect upon the dangerous, destructive nature of obsession.

Eddie’s obsession with Catherine manifests itself, at the beginning of the play, as mere over-protectiveness. Eddie appears disheartened by the fact that Catherine is no longer
A mutual attraction between Catherine and Rodolpho becomes obvious, much to Eddie’s disgust. Catherine compliments Rodolpho’s singing, saying ‘He’s terrific’ and Eddie quickly demands that Rodolpho stop singing on the premise that he’s being too loud. Further evidence of Eddie’s obsessive need to control Catherine and limit her attractiveness to others occurs when he orders Catherine to remove her heeled shoes, telling her ‘Do me a favour, will you? Go ahead’. His intention here is not only to humiliate Catherine (and it works – the stage directions tell us she is ‘embarrassed now, angered’) but to show Rodolpho that he has complete control over Catherine. At this point, the audience begins to suspect that Eddie’s obsessive need to control Catherine stems not from fatherly protectiveness, but from darker feelings of inappropriate lust, which Eddie is not himself fully aware
Breaking the code of honour within his community, he visits a lawyer who comments on the fact that ‘a passion…had moved into his body, like a stranger’. This ‘passion’ is his obsession with Catherine and Eddie is devastated when he learns that the law cannot help him remove Rodolpho from Catherine’s life. Furious, he tells Alfieri how Rodolpho ‘puts his filthy hands on her like a goddam thief!’ His words clearly reveal that he considers Catherine to be his property. Already in a state of fury, Eddie’s obsessiveness reaches its peak in a key scene of the play when he returns home and sees Catherine and Rodolpho emerge from the bedroom. The stage directions tell us that ‘as she strives to free herself he kisses her on the mouth’. Catherine is horrified at this act of complete betrayal but Eddie goes on to kiss Rodolpho too, perhaps in an attempt to suggest Rodolpho is homosexual and to potentially discredit him. At this point in the play, Eddie’s obsession with Catherine has devastated his relationship with