‘Eddie is solely responsible for
his own downfall.’ To what extent do you agree with this statement?
It could be argued that Eddie is
solely responsible for his downfall. Firstly, his pseudo-incestuous desire for
Catherine and the fact that he is over protective of her plays a significant part
in contributing to his untimely death. The fact that the audience, like
Alfieri, are aware that “there is too much love for the niece” and that Eddie treats
Catherine like a baby so that she won’t grow up and leave him enables us to see
how his over-protectiveness is ultimately pushing her closer and closer to Rodolpho and thus provoking the confrontation that will
lead to his death at the end of the play. As a result we understand in a way
that Eddie does not that it is his own actions, not Rodolpho’s,
that are driving Catherine away from him and as such we can see him as playing
a key role in his own downfall. This awareness on the part of the audience is
reinforced by moments where Beatrice, for example, points out that “if a prince
came, it would be no different” which emphasizes the idea that Eddie is being
unreasonable in his expectations of what an acceptable suitor for Catherine
would be like.
In addition, Eddie’s behaviour towards
Rodolpho plays a key role in contributing to his
downfall. Eddie constantly undermines Rodolpho by implicitly
accusing him of being homosexual when he calls him “a weird” or says that he
sings “with motions.” He ridicules Rodolpho’s high
voice saying “you wouldn’t be looking for a him, you’d be looking for a her,” and also the fact that he can “cook, sing and make
dresses.” These actions, and indirect insults culminating in Eddie’s final and
desperate attempt to prove Rodolpho’s homosexuality
by kissing him helps to undermine any sympathy we may feel towards Eddie. For
the most part Rodolpho has been presented by a Miller
as a relatively endearing young man who is excited by the prospect of entering
his first house in America and sincerely in love with Catherine and as such
Eddie’s outrageous mistreatment of a character with whom we sympathise helps to
accentuate the feeling that Eddie is in a large part responsible for his own
fate.
Most obviously however, the main
event which suggests that Eddie is responsible for his own downfall is that
fact that he telephoned the Immigration Bureau and ‘snitched’ on Marco and Rodolpho as illegal immigrants, even though Alfieri told
him to “put it out of [his] mind” and warned him that “even those who
understand you will turn against you, even those who feel the same will despise
you.” Eddie’s betrayal of his family, despite his first hand knowledge of what
happened to Vinny Bolzano and the warnings from
Alfieri that “[he] wouldn’t have a friend in the world” suggests that Eddie is
in a large part responsible for his death at the end of the play.
Nonetheless, while it is clear that
Eddie did play a part in creating the circumstances that led to his eventual
death, it could also be argued that Eddie was not solely responsible for this
downfall. Arthur Miller modeled this play on the tragedies of Ancient Greece
and as such, almost from the moment that the curtain opens, there is a sense that
the hero’s downfall is inevitable. This sense of inevitability is mainly created
through Miller’s use of Alfieri as an omniscient narrator who acts as a chorus
in the play who knows exactly what will happen. Indeed when Alfieri begins his
speech by saying that “this one’s name was Eddie Carbone” the past tense verb not
only foreshadows Eddie’s death but also creates the impression that the story
had already happened and the events were inevitable. This theme is further
emphasized when Alfieri states that “I wanted to spread an alarm, but nothing
had happened” and “I could have finished the story that afternoon”. These two
quotations accentuate how it seems as though Eddie’s downfall was inevitable
and the line “Eddie Carbone had never expected to have a destiny” further
highlights this as the word “destiny” signifies that his life path had been
chosen for him and he had no control over it. As such, if he was doomed by
destiny to act in the way that he did, it seems unfair to condemn Eddie as
being solely responsible for his own downfall as the Fates which conspired
against him seem to have played at least as big a role as he did.
In addition, Miller raises further
questions over Eddie’s guilt by leaving many of the scenes in the play
ambiguous. For example, when Eddie accuses Rodolpho
of “bowin’ to his passport” the initial reaction of
most of the audience might be that Eddie is simply trying to invent ulterior
motives for Rodolpho to make him seem sinister to
Catherine. On this reading of the scene it is Eddie’s paranoia and unrecognized
love for Catherine that leads him towards his own death. However, Miller never
clarifies whether or not Rodolpho actually is
homosexual and also raises questions about how exactly Rodlpho
feels about Catherine, for example when he refuses to marry her if it meant
living together in Italy rather than America. Seen from a contrary perspective Eddie’s
suspicions could be deemed as justified and, if Eddie is right in the end and
he is only protecting Catherine from a potential threat, then it would seem
that the manipulative Rodolpho is the character
ultimately responsible for Eddie’s downfall as he drives a wedge between
Catherine and Eddie simply in order to secure his residency in the USA. Similarly,
Eddie’s arguments that Rodolpho is “stealing from
[him]” and that Rodolpho’s purchases of records,
jackets and shows show that “he ain’t worried [about
being deported], this guy is here,” are partially convincing and create further
uncertainty as to whether Eddie or Rodolpho are more
fully to blame for the tragedy at the end of the play.