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(Catherine, Eddie’s wife’s late sister’s daughter and Stanley, Blanche’s sister’s husband). Like Eddie, Blanche daintily drops hints that she is interested in her sister’s husband although at the start of the play we dismiss this as Blanche’s usual behavior as she has a tendency to flirt with anyone/everyone she comes
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In Eddie's world, he imagines protecting Catherine from marriage or any male relationship and wants her for himself. While Eddie wavers and switches between communal and state laws and cultures to discriminate against Rodolpho, his motivations do not change, regardless of the fact it is often at the expense of others. Throughout the play, Miller creates uncomfortable situations for the reader/viewer, caused by the emergence of Eddie’s unusual ‘love’ for Catherine. This is shown in particular in act one, when Catherine lights Eddie's cigar in the living room, it is an event that gives Eddie unusual pleasure, as he then longingly ‘stands looking towards the kitchen for a moment’. This would normally be an innocent and loving gesture from a niece to her uncle, however due to the fact that the audience is aware of Eddie’s feelings about Catherine, the situation becomes uncomfortable, possibly bearing phallic connotations. Depending on interpretation by the actors and by the readers, this moment in the play may have more or less sexual undertones, heightening the tension gradually, with each intimate encounter between the two. Eddie pays great attention to Catherine, which often corresponds with his impotence in his own relationship with Beatrice; in scene one she confronts him asking ‘When am I going to be a wife again, Eddie?’, which can either be interpreted as a delicate way to address the sensitive subject of their non-existent sex life, or as a way of subtly and bitterly trying to make him see how he is behaving. Later on she also says "You going to leave her (Catherine) alone? Or you gonna drive me crazy?" she says this after Eddie has just argued with Catherine in the street over Rodolpho; it is another way of her trying to tell him what he needs to hear. Until the end of the play, the other characters are aware of
In Eddie's world, he imagines protecting Catherine from marriage or any male relationship and wants her for himself. While Eddie wavers and switches between communal and state laws and cultures to discriminate against Rodolpho, his motivations do not change, regardless of the fact it is often at the expense of others. Throughout the play, Miller creates uncomfortable situations for the reader/viewer, caused by the emergence of Eddie’s unusual ‘love’ for Catherine. This is shown in particular in act one, when Catherine lights Eddie's cigar in the living room, it is an event that gives Eddie unusual pleasure, as he then longingly ‘stands looking towards the kitchen for a moment’. This would normally be an innocent and loving gesture from a niece to her uncle, however due to the fact that the audience is aware of Eddie’s feelings about Catherine, the situation becomes uncomfortable, possibly bearing phallic connotations. Depending on interpretation by the actors and by the readers, this moment in the play may have more or less sexual undertones, heightening the tension gradually, with each intimate encounter between the two. Eddie pays great attention to Catherine, which often corresponds with his impotence in his own relationship with Beatrice; in scene one she confronts him asking ‘When am I going to be a wife again, Eddie?’, which can either be interpreted as a delicate way to address the sensitive subject of their non-existent sex life, or as a way of subtly and bitterly trying to make him see how he is behaving. Later on she also says "You going to leave her (Catherine) alone? Or you gonna drive me crazy?" she says this after Eddie has just argued with Catherine in the street over Rodolpho; it is another way of her trying to tell him what he needs to hear. Until the end of the play, the other characters are aware of