Isobel Bridie Character Analysis

Susannah: Maria, show a little faith, your father would never conduct an experiment unless he was quite sure of the outcome, isn’t that so?

Fenwick: You haven’t quite grasped the subtlety of the word ‘experiment’, Susannah –

Harriet: Primarily because you’re playing a sheep. And besides, some people are not meant to say anything of consequence. As in life, so in a play. Certain rules must be obeyed. And one of them is you stick to your own lines. You can’t swap them round as it takes your fancy. Think of the chaos. Think of the audience.

Tom: So what’s the difference? At what stage does it stop being disturbing and start being archaeology?

Isobel: I’m unused to answering questions. When I talk about myself my face feels hot. When I talk about myself I feel that I am lying.

Armstrong: Are you?

Isobel: I’m not sure. I try not to. But we all lie about ourselves.

Armstrong: Do we?

Isobel: We don’t mean to but we do.

Harriet: The future’s ours, these chimneys belch out hope,
These furnaces forge dreams as well as wealth.
Great minds conspire to cast an Eden here
From Iron, and steam bends nature to our will –

Kate: She probably wasn’t murdered. She was dissected. That’s why some of her’s missing.

Armstrong: What difference does it make if they’re dead? The dead are just meat. But meat that tells a story. Every time I slice open a body, I feel as if I’m discovering America.

Armstrong: Digging up corpses is necessary if we’re to totter out of the Dark Ages. You can dissect a stolen body with moral qualms or with none at all and it won’t make a blind bit of difference to what you discover. Discovery is neutral. Ethics should be left to philosophers and priests. I’ve never had a moral qualm in my life, and it would be death to science if I did. That’s why I’ll be remembered as a great physician, Roget, and you’ll be forgotten as a man who made lists.

Armstrong: I make sure she takes them off, that’s the whole point because then I get to examine her beautiful back in all its delicious, twisted glory, and frankly that’s all I’m interested in. D’you know the first time I saw it I got an erection?

Roget: You find it arousing?

Armstrong: In the same way that I find electricity exciting, or the isolation of oxygen, or the dissection of a human heart.

Armstrong: Well, how was I to know? It’s not my fault, I didn’t know she was …

Roget: What?

Armstrong: Unstable. I didn’t know. Don’t say anything, eh?

Silence.

I mean, we don’t know for a fact that it was me who drove her to it, do we? It could have been anything.

Roget: Of course it was you.

Armstrong: Where’s the evidence?

Fenwick: Here’s to whatever lies ahead … here’s to uncharted lands … here’s to a future we dream about but cannot know … here’s to the new century.

Susannah: Maria, show a little faith, your father would never conduct an experiment unless he was quite sure of the outcome, isn’t that so?

Fenwick: You haven’t quite grasped the subtlety of the word ‘experiment’, Susannah –

Harriet: Primarily because you’re playing a sheep. And besides, some people are not meant to say anything of consequence. As in life, so in a play. Certain rules must be obeyed. And one of them is you stick to your own lines. You can’t swap them round as it takes your fancy. Think of the chaos. Think of the audience.

Tom: So what’s the difference? At what stage does it stop being disturbing and start being archaeology?

Isobel: I’m unused to answering questions. When I talk about myself my face feels hot. When I talk about myself I feel that I am lying.

Armstrong: Are you?

Isobel: I’m not sure. I try not to. But we all lie about ourselves.

Armstrong: Do we?

Isobel: We don’t mean to but we do.

Harriet: The future’s ours, these chimneys belch out hope,
These furnaces forge dreams as well as wealth.
Great minds conspire to cast an Eden here
From Iron, and steam bends nature to our will –

Kate: She probably wasn’t murdered. She was dissected. That’s why some of her’s missing.

Armstrong: What difference does it make if they’re dead? The dead are just meat. But meat that tells a story. Every time I slice open a body, I feel as if I’m discovering America.

Armstrong: Digging up corpses is necessary if we’re to totter out of the Dark Ages. You can dissect a stolen body with moral qualms or with none at all and it won’t make a blind bit of difference to what you discover. Discovery is neutral. Ethics should be left to philosophers and priests. I’ve never had a moral qualm in my life, and it would be death to science if I did. That’s why I’ll be remembered as a great physician, Roget, and you’ll be forgotten as a man who made lists.

Armstrong: I make sure she takes them off, that’s the whole point because then I get to examine her beautiful back in all its delicious, twisted glory, and frankly that’s all I’m interested in. D’you know the first time I saw it I got an erection?

Roget: You find it arousing?

Armstrong: In the same way that I find electricity exciting, or the isolation of oxygen, or the dissection of a human heart.

Armstrong: Well, how was I to know? It’s not my fault, I didn’t know she was …

Roget: What?

Armstrong: Unstable. I didn’t know. Don’t say anything, eh?

Silence.

I mean, we don’t know for a fact that it was me who drove her to it, do we? It could have been anything.

Roget: Of course it was you.

Armstrong: Where’s the evidence?

Fenwick: Here’s to whatever lies ahead … here’s to uncharted lands … here’s to a future we dream about but cannot know … here’s to the new century.