Alfieri plays various roles throughout the play and is probably the most important person but, not as a character. As the narrator, Alfieri sets the scene, 'this is the slum that faces the bay on the seaward side of Brooklyn Bridge', and usually speaks in places of time gaps for example after Eddie just meets with Rodolpho and Marco, Alfieri narrates and the scene continues a few hours after where it left. Alfieri tells the story to make it clearer to understand and links scenes to events. Alfieri also acts as a commentator in the play because unlike a...
brought home his pay, and he lived'. Alfieri thought of Eddie as a simple man who does what he needs to do to survive. The importance of this speech is to show some sympathy towards Eddie.

In Alfieri's fourth appearance, he still implies Eddie is a simple man 'a man works, raises his family, goes bowling, eats, gets old, and then he dies'. Alfieri mentions that Eddie has a 'Destiny' and that expands on the point that it is inevitable because destinies cannot change 'there was a future, there was a trouble that would not go away'.