What tensions does Miller portray during the arrival of the Italian Cousins?

What tensions does Miller portray during the arrival of the Italian Cousins?

Catherine is almost immediately attracted to Rodolpho, this causes an immediate response from Eddie, one where he forcefully tries to change the subject. “He’s practically blond,” “How’s the coffee doin’,” Eddie is uncorfortable with Catherine immediate interest in Rodolpho’s feature, he therefore hastily changes the subject

The song paper doll provokes a completely different response from Eddie and Catherine, “Leave him finish, its beautiful,” “Because we never had no singers here…and all of a sudden there’s a singer in the house, y’know what I mean.” Eddie disguises his reason for stopping the singing with the threat that the immigration will pick him up, “ you don’t wanna be picked up, do ya?” But in fact is very unnerved by the traits of Rodolpho.

Eddie reasserts his dominance over Catherine by commenting on her clothes. “What’s the heels for Garbo,” this is as to put down Catherine in the light of when Rodolpho arrives. To show her who’s boss, this is a key characteristic part of Eddie.

I think there is a big cultural tension between Eddie and Rodolpho. Eddie is in a very laddish culture, “Listen, I could tell you things about Louis which you wouldn’t wave to him no more.” The men in Red Hook are completely different to the men of Rodolpho and Marco’s neighbourhood. This is where the singing unnerves Eddie and dress making which Rodolpho sees as normal.

Eddie near the end starts to maybe see the possible threat of Rodolpho on Catherine. Miller creates tension ever so subtlety here. Eddie comments on the fact that Catherine is wearing high heels, Eddie then says, “All actresses want to be around here,” Then Rodolpho replies with the statement that it is the same in Italy. Eddie then says, “Yeah, heh,” here the stage directions come into play, He is sizing up Rodolpho.” This is as if to say, and what does my Catherine have anything to do with it. And the very next thing is Rodolpho commenting on the beauty of Catherine. Miller again uses stage directions to express the anger of Eddie, “his face puffed with trouble.”

Miller then shows a clever technique, which I think works particularly effective.  Rodolpho is talking about his dreams of having a motorcycle and being a singer. Eddie struggles to come to terms with this, so Rodolpho gets hit with a series of questions, “What you do with a motorcycle? Why cant you just walk or take a trolley or sump’m? You mean a regular?” these may all seem like perfectly innocent questions but fact Miller portrays Eddie showing a very subtle message, it is as if to say, hey this is all out of your dreams!

In this passage of the play Miller cleverly uses techniques to his strength to portray the tension between the 2 families.

WHAT DO WE LEARN ABOUT THE WORLD IN WHICH THIS PLAY IS SET FROM AFLIERI’S OPENING SPEECH?

We can learn a lot about the area where the play is set just by Alfieri’s opening speech. He comments on the look, the people and most of all the vibe. He expresses what the people are like and who they are.

The first thing I would like to comment on is what he portrays the place to look like. From his speech I get would think Red Hook is a dirty and muggy place, “The slum that faces the bay on the seaward side of Brooklyn Bridge.” Comparing the area to a slum is extremely strong; slums are where the poorest of the poor live in deprived areas. He also states that, “This is the gullet of New York swallowing the tonnage of the world”. This to me says that this is a place forgotten about, a place where everything is just dumped and left there and no one really cares. I also think this is a slight reference to the illegal immigrants coming into this area.

Secondly he comments on the people who live there.  I get the impression that this is an area of poor people, “petty troubles of the poor”. We also know that this is an Italian-American neighbourhood, where their family will come over and stay. But with a poor neighbourhood like this will come misfortune. He describes the sort of things that happen to them, “compensation cases, eviction, family squabbles.” The lawyer is thought of as a reminder of disasters and the poor’s misfortune, “ behind that suspicious little nod of theirs lie three thousand years of distrust”. The people are not thankful of the law, they clearly believe it has mistreated them every time it has come into place, “the law has not been a friendly idea since the Greeks we beaten.”

Lastly he describes the community vibe and feelings of the community. He states that justice is an important community value yet, “Oh, there were many here were justly shot by unjust men. Justice is very important here.” This to me suggests that the people who were in charge of the justice system are just as bad as the victims of the system. Then after he paints the picture of Red Hook he states that the people are now quite civilised. “And now we are quite civilised, quite American,” He says that for such a poor place we are fairly civilised, he then goes on to say, “Now we settle for half and I like it better. I no longer keep a pistol in my filing cabinet.” This tells me that this was once a violent and troubled place but has now calmed down and has had a moment of realisation.

In conclusion I have shown that the opening speech has given us a large insight into the community and people of Red Hook. I think that having an opening like this already gives us inkling on what might happen in the play and I believe that this sets up the story very well. And draws us in making us want to read on.