Respect, Honor, Reputation Theme Analysis

One of Eddie’s main concerns in the play is his honor and the respect (or lack thereof) he gets from those around him. Other characters are also concerned with these issues, as matters of personal honor and reputation are of great importance in the close-knit community of Red Hook. But these issues are explored most fully through the character of Eddie. Eddie works hard to support his family and has a proud sense of personal honor. At the beginning of the play, he is a respected, well-liked member of his community. But the play follows his tragic demise as he loses the respect of others and his good reputation. He constantly worries about being disrespected or dishonored by Catherine, Beatrice, Marco, and especially Rodolpho. Closely related to the concepts of honor or respect is the idea of reputation, which can be understood as a more social form of honor. In addition to Eddie’s personal sense of honor, he is greatly concerned with his reputation amongst his neighbors. He is infuriated when Marco spits on him and accuses him of turning him in to the Immigration Bureau (even though Eddie really did do it) because these actions are disrespectful and dishonor Eddie, but especially because they occurred in public, in front of the neighborhood. After Eddie’s reputation is tarnished, his neighbors Lipari, Louis, and Mike ignore and ostracize him.

While Eddie does lose the respect of others around him, part of the problem with his obsession with respect and honor is that he has a rather warped idea of the concepts. Whenever Beatrice or Catherine disagrees with him, he interprets this as a sign of disrespect. Furthermore, he thinks that Rodolpho disrespects and dishonors him merely by spending time with Catherine. In the end, Eddie loses the respect of his family and community precisely because he is so overly concerned and defensive regarding his own honor and reputation. He interprets all sorts of things as affronts to his personal honor and lashes out against those who he thinks are disrespecting him. Then, ironically, this very habit of overreaction causes Catherine, Beatrice, Rodolpho, and Marco to lose actual respect for him gradually. Nonetheless, even after Eddie’s self-destructive decline, Beatrice and Catherine show some respect for him, when he is stabbed by Marco. And Alfieri ends the play by affirming that he still mourns Eddie respectfully, granting Eddie some vestige of a positive reputation after all.