In this essay I am going to write about what motivates Eddie Carbone in  THE VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE.

Eddie is a simple person who is a victim of circumstances but he also contributes to his downfall.

I am going to start with his Sicilian background because I believe that this is one of the most important things that motivates Eddie.

Coming from a Sicilian background Eddie believed that the man should be the leader of the household and that everything goes

by him first concerning his family and that he should be very manly and stand up for those close to him. You can see that he believes this by the way he talks to Catherine. Catherine is talking to him about her job as a stenographer and he says  ‘‘why didn’t you ask me before you took a job ?’’ this shows that he wants Catherine to ask for his permission before accepting the job. He wants her to ask

for permission so he feels like he is the boss and because he wasn’t consulted first he feels threatened. This is one thing that lead to his downfall because he was trying to be so manly he could not show any emotions, so he kept everything inside and bottled it up.

His Sicilian background inter links with his 1950’s notions of manhood because his Sicilian background meant that he had to be very manly and be the one who goes of to work. He shows his manliness when he starts to be competitive with Marco and Rodolfo for instance when he  starts to teach him Boxing   ‘‘well come on , I’ll teach you’’ and then when Marco showed Eddie that he could pick up a chair with one hand, Eddie looked grumpy because he couldn’t do it, he felt like he was beaten. His notions of manhood also lead to his downfall because he was so self indulgent that  he could not take Alfieri’s advice to let Catherine do what she wanted to do.

Eddies neighbourhood motivates him a lot because he is so concerned about his respect in the neighbourhood he forgets about what he is doing to the people close to him. This is shown when at the final scene he kept on demanding respect ‘‘wipin the neighbourhood with my name like dirty rag ;I want my name back Marco , now gimme my name and we go together to the wedding’’ as a result of this Eddie died. He was so concerned about what the neighbourhood thought of him because he lived in Brooklyn which was a tough part of downtown New York and it was a close nit community meaning that everyone knew everyone’s business and everyone was from the same background as Eddie and had similar jobs so they were probably similar to Eddie, meaning that they cared about what the community thought of them. So when they heard what Marco had said and done to Eddie, they probably thought it would be better not to talk to Eddie, as it might affect themselves. This would of hurt Eddie knowing what the community thought of him, that’s why he was demanding respect and would not back down and I believe this motivated him a lot knowing he had a bad reputation in the community and the only way he could see to get his respect back would be for Marco to say that he was wrong. And as a result of Marco not giving ‘Eddie’s name back’ Eddie died.

Eddie’s sense of justice and fairness seemed to motivate him a lot. At the beginning his sense of justice and fairness motivated him in a good way for instance he thought he had to let Marco and Rodolfo  stay because it was the right thing to do ‘‘then what the hell. It’s an honour’ B., I mean it.