Eddie's Jealousy

In a ‘View from the Bridge’ by Arthur Miller it is shown that fundamentally decent people can be destroyed by their own human fragility. Eddie, the protagonist in the play initially appears as a generous, hard working family man. Despite his general decency, Eddie’s weaknesses such as his jealousy, possessiveness and narrow minded abstinence result in his self destruction.
Eddies most prominent flaw, jealousy, plays a key role in the demolition of the originally ‘well rounded’ individual. Eddie becomes jealous of Rodolpho primarily for taking away Eddie’s sweetheart, his niece Catherine, but his envy for other factors of Rodolpho such as his singing, cooking and sewing skills is also evident.(insert quote). Throughout the text we watch as Eddie’s jealousy gnaws and meddles with his original values and we see the journey of how a simple jealous streak can turn a man to go against his traditional values and principles. This is shown as when
Eddie first hears of the immigrants he tells Catherine that she must keep her mouth shut about them under all circumstances, yet in the end ironically Eddie is the one who notifies the immigration department of the illegal Italians. Eddies jealousy is a catalyst of a chain reaction which leads to his destruction. The jealousy also allows animosity which leads to intense dislike with a violent outcome. Eddies original values and morals were replaced with the envious poison of jealousy and were carried away down the drain much like the blood spilled from his body because of this flaw.
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Eddies initial feelings may have just been fatherly protection over his niece, but this originally honest emotion was made into a flaw as it turned into feelings of possessiveness over Catherine.
Eddie, originally being a respected man in the Brooklyn area ends up being insecure about other men looking and trying to take away Catherine from him. An example of where fatherly protection turns to possessive and controlling mannerisms is when Catherine is walking around the house in her new clothes and Eddie states “you give me the willies the way you walk...”. These feelings of possessiveness contribute to destroying Eddie as they are one of the driving forces behind Eddies dislike and spite towards Rodolpho which in turn cause his death. Eddie has an inability to let Catherine go and being a masculine figure finds it difficult to back down or release the feelings of ownership over Catherine. Eddie, once a caring father figure, was unable to release Catherine of his inventory which resulted in blood being released from his
body.
Someone who stands up for their morals and what they believe in is generally a positive trait to have, yet in Eddie we see how this seed of a trait grows into being a big negative tree of stubbornness and being extremely narrow minded. This leads to his death because he is blinded by his own selfish desires for Catherine and refuses to open his eyes to see and understand what is best her. His incapability to acknowledge or address different views or possibilities on issues result in obsessing over different things and the attempt to draw others into his narrow minded and sticky web of destruction. Evidence of Eddie’s stubbornness is found when he refuses to believe that Rodolpho does not want to marry Catherine just to become an American citizen. His narrow minded trait also is made clear when he makes himself believe that Rodolpho is homosexual so much to the point that he kisses him as if to prove it.