A View from the Bridge

When Beatrice talks with Catherine about Eddie’s hostility to Rodolpho, Beatrice asks, “was there any fella he liked for you? There wasn’t, was there?” (404). She then goes on to add that “if it was a prince came here for you it would be no different” (404). In this sense, Beatrice gives voice to the most straightforward interpretation of Eddie’s attitude toward Rodolpho: that all of Eddie’s claims about Rodolpho being weird for singing on ships and buying clothes with his pay are motivated by jealousy. What truly matters to Eddie, Beatrice suggests, is the prospect of losing Catherine. Eddie’s remarks to Catherine after reproaching her for staying out late with Rodolpho support that interpretation: “I don’t see you no more. I come home you’re runnin’ around someplace […] I used to come home, you was always there” (402). Eddie’s real concern is that Catherine is literally and metaphorically growing apart from him. In contrast, the concerns he raises about Rodolpho’s character are merely post hoc rationalizations for this underlying fear. Alternatively, as with his claim that Rodolpho wants to marry Catherine for the visa, his comments are desperate bids to stop her from marrying.

While much of Eddie’s animosity toward Rodolpho can be explained by the simple fact of him being a love rival, however, that explanation does not account for the intensity or specificity of Eddie’s dislike. Eddie’s disgust is grounded in The Role of Work and Performance in Constituting Masculinity. While Eddie grounds his masculinity in the physical labor that he performs to pay for shelter and food for his family, Rodolpho represents an alternative form of masculinity expressed through interests that Eddie considers feminine, such as music or fashion.

When Eddie tells Alfieri, with horror, that “the guy ain’t right” (407), the examples he offers show that Eddie is uncomfortable with the ways Rodolpho comes across as feminine to him. Not only does Rodolpho sing—already a suspect hobby to Eddie— but he supposedly sings like a woman: “[I]f you came in the house and you didn’t know who was singin’, you wouldn’t be lookin’ for him you be lookin’ for her” (408). Worse, from Eddie’s perspective, he witnessed Rodolpho making a new dress for Catherine, looking, “so sweet there, like an angel” (408), adding that “you could kiss him he was so sweet” (408). As such, the problem with Rodolpho, for Eddie, is not just that he is threatening to take Catherine from him. Eddie dislikes Rodolpho because he challenges Eddie’s deeply ingrained and rigid sense of what it means to be masculine.

What’s more, the fact that Catherine can fall for a man who excels at traditionally feminine pursuits, like cooking and dressmaking, suggests that gender is becoming more fluid in a way that Eddie can neither understand nor adapt to. This is especially worrying for Eddie given that his own masculinity has been challenged by the inability to perform sexually with his wife. Eddie responds by reasserting his masculine authority, trying to banish Rodolpho, and what he represents, from the traditional masculine world of the pier. As Eddie says, “the waterfront is no place for him” (415). Eddie hopes to reinforce a clear division of gender roles and exorcise the threat of their cross-contamination by asserting that Rodolpho’s cooking and singing disqualify him from the world of “man’s work.”

Likewise, Eddie tries to teach Rodolpho to box to re-assert the traditional certainty of gender identities. Eddie’s sparring with Rodolpho is not just a covert way of asserting dominance over Rodolpho in a domain where he remains superior or venting aggression against him. It is also a means of trying to integrate Rodolpho back into the traditional masculine order and its adversarial binaries based on physical prowess. Unfortunately, this project backfires. When Eddie strikes Rodolpho, it merely garners more sympathy for him from Catherine and leads to her and Rodolpho dancing again. His failure to re-assert his masculinity is finally emphasized by Eddie’s inability to lift the chair when challenged by Marco. His failure symbolically reveals Eddie to be incapable of confronting the new challenges posed to his masculinity or of overcoming them.

Finally, going to Alfieri in search of a way to use the law against Rodolpho encapsulates The Conflict Between Official and Natural Law, as well as Eddie’s increasingly fraught relationship with Immigration and the Dynamics of Hospitality. Alfieri points out that Eddie is conflating the domain of official law with natural law: There is nothing illegal about Rodolpho flirting with Catherine or singing on the docks. The only legally actionable thing Rodolpho has done is work in the US without authorization but bringing that case against him would breach the moral laws of Eddie’s community. In his increasing desperation to remove Rodolpho from his life, however, Eddie loses track of such distinctions. He wants to punish Rodolpho for breaching what he sees as the natural laws of gender, and for threatening his relationship with Catherine, and his conversation with Alfieri foreshadows that he will be willing to switch his allegiance from the moral laws of his community to the official laws of the United States to do it.