Manliness, hostility and aggression in the play.
Arthur Miller's "A View From The Bridge" is a story about a man called Eddie who because of his jealousy caused by his idea of manliness, through hostility and aggression, led to his unpredictable death. Rodolpho and Marco are brothers, illegal immigrants in Brooklyn New York. They went there to find work, Eddie housed them because of their family ties with his. .
Eddie thinks that a real man should be strong, tough and mean. The appearance of a man should be with dark features and big size. He thinks that a real man should be like him, the breadwinner who works hard, doing work that uses muscle and not much brain. He perhaps also thinks that a man would always look at a pretty woman in a sexual way rather than just another person, this is shown when he says there are "bad men" at Catherine's workplace. His Sicilian background probably is a factor that leads him to his views of being manly; he believes that the leader of the house should have control of other family members" actions.
When Catherine starts growing up Eddie feels that she is not under is control anymore and therefore cannot protect her. At the start of the play he is over-protective over Catherine as a normal head of the family would be, but soon after Rodolpho appears it developed into possessiveness. This wouldn't happen if he had only fatherly protectiveness over her, as a father would want what is best for his daughter. He takes over as Catherine's fatherly figure because her mother died and left Eddie as her legal guardian. .
Right before the cousins came, Eddie, Beatrice and Catherine had a discussion about Catherine getting a job. Eddie was ill at ease with the idea, he gave reasons that she is too young, still studying and that the location was a bad place "why didn't you ask me before you took the job?" Eddie might think that all men has lust towards women as he does towards Catherine, thinking this he gave the excuse of a "bad location", as in there are "bad" people in this place.
