Dealing with the discussion of eddie's feelings towards Catherine

The interview with Alfieri on pp45-48, reveals eddie to be a man who does not understand what he is feeling. Eddie deals with his painful feelings of envy by imagining Rodolfo to be trying to steal catherine from him, as if she were a piece of property. I think that it may be easy for students to dismiss Eddie as a crazy man. to avoid this mistake, I suggest that any discussion of this scene concentrate on Eddie's reasoning. Write out Eddie's claims as arguments and ask the students to assess his reasoning and his evidence. Eddie's use of tone, his use of emotive language, his unsupported generalisations are not difficult for students to recognize.
Having established that Eddie's arguments are not convincing, the next step may be to ask
what makes someone advance arguments that are so implausible? Could he be serving some personal need in doing so? what need might that be? What aspect of his personality and his past compels him to believe what he does?
At this point one might ask the students to look at how Alfieri speaks to Eddie. You might ask why is Alfieri so careful with him? Ask them to comment on the different way they both speak.
I will add some more to this entry soon.