Catherine

By Radhika Santhanagopalan and Saloni Dattani

Catherine

Description

• Relationship with Beatrice:– Beatrice’s ‘sister Nancy’s daughter’ [26]

• Aesthetically pleasing:– ‘’Katie you are walkin’ wavy! I don’t like the looks they’re givin’ you in the candy store.

And with them new high heels on the sidewalk -clack, clack clack. The heads are turnin’ like windmills.’ [14]

• Naïve:– ‘walk[ing] around in front of him in [her] slip’ [43] – ‘But if you act like a baby, he be treatin’ you like a baby’ [43]

• Wants a job:– ‘It’s a big plumbing company over Nostrand avenue.’ [18]– She is ‘the best student in the whole class’ [18]

• Emotions are clearly visible:– ‘[with a blush but holding her ground]: Yeah. I like him.’ [40]

Catherine

Her relationship with other characters

• Towards Eddie:– ‘You like it? I fixed it different.’ [12]

• Towards Rodolpho:– ‘Leave him finish, it’s beautiful!’ [32]

• Towards other men:– first shown to be waving ‘to Louis from the window’. [13] – not bothered by ‘the looks they’re givin’ [her] in the candy store.’ [14]

• Towards Beatrice:– ‘No, you could tell me B.! Gee, I’m all mixed up.’ [44]

Catherine

Other characters’ relationship with her

• Eddie towards her:– ‘I think it’s too short, ain’t it?’ [14]– ‘You can’t take no job. Why didn’t you ask before you take a job?’ [18]– Alfieri says: ‘There is too much love for the daughter, there is too much love

for the niece’ [48]– ‘...his filthy hands on her like a goddamn thief!...He’s stealing from me!’

[49]

• Rodolpho towards her:– ‘Catherine. If I take in my hands a little bird. And she grows and wishes to

fly. But I will not let her out of my hands because I love her so much, is that right for me to do?’ [63]

• Beatrice towards her:– ‘Be the way you are, Katie, don’t listen to him’ [21]

Catherine

Themes

• Romantic love:– ‘I love you, Rodolpho, I love you.’ [62]

• Sexual love:– Beatrice wants to be ‘a wife again’, Eddie tries to hide his love for

Catherine: ‘I ain’t been feelin’ good.’ [36]

• Femininity: – Juxtaposes Beatrice. Eddie asks her: ‘What’s the high heels for, Garbo?’ [33]

Catherine

Importance

• Innocence and naïveté• Themes of romantic and sexual love

– Eddie’s unorthodox love for her serves as the major disequilibrium in the play

Catherine

Stylistic features

• Symbols– ‘Catherine. If I take in my hands a little bird. And she grows and wishes to

fly. But I will not let her out of my hands because I love her so much, is that right for me to do?’ [63]

– ‘I don’t know anything, teach me, Rodolpho, hold me.’ [63]

• Development of her character:– ‘You like it, huh?’ [12]– ‘What do you want me to do?’ [14]– ‘That ain’t what I wanted though.’ [19]– [Catherine, sensing now an imperious demand, turns with some fear, with a

discovery, to Beatrice.] [45]– ‘Yeah. I like him.’ [40]– ‘I’m gonna get married, Eddie.’ [71]