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Literature and Integrity
Themes and Colors
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Betrayal, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Children never appear in Betrayal, but their existence at the margins haunts the action of the play, hinting at the unavoidable consequences the central affair has for the other people in Emma and Jerry’s lives. For Jerry, the presence of children defines a home: he tells Emma that their illicit love-pad “could never… actually be a home. You have a home. I have a home. With curtains, etcetera. And Children. Two children in two homes. There are no children here, so it’s not the same kind of home.” Jerry’s characteristically dry understatement nevertheless suggests the alienation he feels from his children and home life, which seem so secondary to his secret life with Emma. This alienation is perhaps a product of his having to choose priorities: his energy is limited, and the amount he dedicates to his passionate affair necessarily detracts from that which his family can receive. Disappointment with that forced choice and its consequences could also explain Jerry’s fixation on the moment, early in their affair, when he tossed Emma and Robert’s young daughter up in the air. Jerry seems to see in this moment a beautiful if fleeting and delusional glimpse of his and Emma’s families melding together, in a victimless blend that saves him from having to make a choice and suffer its consequences .
What neither Jerry nor Emma wish to recognize is that this desire to maintain two “homes”—a stable family life as well as the steamy environs of the flat, a reckless alternate reality—inevitably wounds both. Jerry and Emma’s passion painfully erodes, while Robert (and possibly Judith) take up affairs of their own, finally ruining Emma’s marriage. Jerry not being present when his son falls from his bike symbolizes the absence of paternal guidance and care that results from directing all his time and energy toward Emma. Jerry would prefer not to be reminded that his son exists, as in Scene One, when Emma asks him how his son is doing and he swiftly avoids answering the question. Thus, what begins as a reluctance to make a decision becomes over time a willful blindness to the consequences of that decision—in this case, Jerry’s alienation from a family that he has deprived of attention, in a betrayal of his paternal responsibility. Through its emphasis on Jerry’s evasiveness, then, Betrayal comments on the allure and impossibility of a life free from responsibility and consequences.
Related Themes from Other Texts
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Responsibility and Consequences ThemeTracker
The ThemeTracker below shows where, and to what degree, the theme of Responsibility and Consequences appears in each scene of Betrayal. Click or tap on any chapter to read its Summary & Analysis.
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Responsibility and Consequences Quotes in Betrayal
Below you will find the important quotes in Betrayal related to the theme of Responsibility and Consequences .
Scene 1
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EMMA: How’s Sam?
JERRY: You mean Judith.
EMMA: Do I?
JERRY: You remember the form. I ask about your husband, you ask about my wife.
EMMA: Yes, of course. How is your wife?
JERRY: All right.
Pause
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JERRY: You didn’t tell Robert about me last night, did you?
EMMA: I had to.
Pause
He told me everything. I told him everything. We were up… all night. At one point Ned came down. I had to take him up to bed, had to put him back to bed. Then I went down again. I think it was the voices woke him up. You know…
[…]
JERRY: You told him everything… about us?
EMMA: I had to.
Pause
JERRY: But he’s my oldest friend. I mean, I picked his own daughter up in my own arms and threw her up and caught her, in my kitchen. He watched me do it.
EMMA: It doesn’t matter. It’s all gone.
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Scene 3
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JERRY: We’re here now.
EMMA: Not really.
JERRY: Well, things have changed. You’ve been so busy, your job, and everything.
EMMA: Well, I know. But I mean, I like it. I want to do it.
JERRY: No, it’s great. It’s marvellous for you. But you’re not—
EMMA: If you’re running a gallery you’ve got to run it, you’ve got to be there.
JERRY: But you’re not free in the afternoons. Are you?
EMMA No.
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EMMA: It’s just… an empty home.
JERRY: It’s not a home.
Pause
I know… I know what you wanted… but it could never… actually be a home. You have a home. I have a home. With curtains, etcetera. And children. Two children in two homes. There are no children here, so it’s not the same kind of home.
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Scene 4
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JERRY: Well, I suppose… boys are more anxious.
ROBERT: Boy babies?
JERRY: Yes.
ROBERT: What the hell are they anxious about… at their age? Do you think?
JERRY: Well… facing the world, I suppose, leaving the womb, all that.
ROBERT: But what about girl babies? They leave the womb too.
JERRY: That’s true. It’s also true that nobody much talks about girl babies leaving the womb. Do they?
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Scene 6
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JERRY: Sam fell off his bike […] He was knocked out. He was out for about a minute.
EMMA: Were you with him?
JERRY: No. Judith. He’s all right. And then I got this bug.
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JERRY: She was so light. And there was your husband and my wife and all the kids, all standing and laughing in your kitchen. I can’t get rid of it.
EMMA: It was your kitchen, actually.
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Scene 8
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JERRY: Ginos? What the hell was she doing at Ginos?
EMMA: She was having lunch. With a woman.
JERRY: A woman?
EMMA: Yes.
Pause
JERRY: Ginos is a long way from the hospital.
EMMA: Of course it isn’t.
JERRY: Well… I suppose not.
Pause
And you?
EMMA: Me?
JERRY: What were you doing at Ginos?
EMMA: Having lunch.
JERRY: Yes, but with who?
Pause
EMMA: My sister.
JERRY: Ah.
Pause
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Scene 9
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[…] I’m madly in love with you. I can’t believe that what anyone is at this moment saying has ever happened has ever happened. Nothing has ever happened. Nothing. This is the only thing that has ever happened. Your eyes kill me. I’m lost. You’re wonderful
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