Discuss How Arthur Miller uses the different relationships between Eddie and the Italian brothers to explore key themes of the play.
When Beatrice’s cousins Marco and Rodolfo come to stay with the family illegally, to try and get work and a sufficient amount of money to send back home to Italy, tensions rises as Eddie feels threatened as Marco’s alpha male status, whereas he is
When Marco first arrived, he thought that Eddie was a kind, friendly man and so he had his trust in him. As the play develops, Rodolfo becomes closer to Catherine and Eddie’s jealousy of Rodolfo, being so close to Catherine, increases. His dislike of Rodlofo increases as he tries to go out with Catherine to Broadway. Because of this, Eddie tried to insult Marco by saying that when he went back to Italy, there may be “plenty surprises” and added “…they count the kids and there’s a couple extra then when they left”. This is aiming to insult Marco by suggesting that his wife might be cheating on him during his absence. This is when Marco took notice of the fact that Eddie was not being friendly towards him and his brother. Later on Eddie pretended to teach Rodolfo how to box, but was actually trying to humiliate his weakness and lack of masculinity. He hurt Rodolfo and therefore Marco felt the responsibility to intervene with what Eddie is doing. This led to the chair scene where there is a change in authority between Eddie and Marco through “face to face… tension… raised like a weapon…glare of warning…smile of triumph…Eddie’s grin vanished”.
When Eddie found out that Rodolfo and Catherine had a sexual intercourse, he was very angry, which led him to kiss Rodolfo, attempting to show Catherine of his homosexuality. After this failed, he tried to find another reason to prevent Rodolfo and Catherine from marrying. There was no way to prevent this marriage apart from reporting them to the immigration department and so he did so.
Through his anger, although Alfieri