Adam Brant Character Analysis

LAVINIA—(in a dry, brittle tone) I remember your admiration for the naked native women. You said they had found the secret of happiness because they had never heard that love can be a sin.

BRANT—(surprised—sizing her up puzzledly) So you remember that, do you? (then romantically) Aye! And they live in as near the garden of paradise before sin was discovered as you'll find on this earth! Unless you've seen it, you can't picture the green beauty of their land set in the blue of the sea! The clouds like down on the mountain tops, the sun drowsing in your blood, and always the surf on the barrier reef singing a croon in your ears like a lullaby! The Blessed Isles, I call them! You can forget there all men's dirty dreams of greed and power!

CHRISTINE—I know you, Vinnie! I've watched you ever since you were little, trying to do exactly what you're doing now! You've tried to become the wife of your father and the mother of Orin! You've always schemed to steal my place!

LAVINIA—(wildly) No! It’s you who have stolen all love from me since the time I was born!

BRANT—[…] Does Orin by any chance resemble his father?

CHRISTINE—(stares at him—agitatedly) No! Of course not! What put such a stupid idea in your head? […] It was Orin you made me think of! It was Orin!

BRANT—I remember that night we were introduced and I heard the name Mrs. Ezra Mannon! By God, how I hated you then for being his! I thought, by God, I’ll take her from him and that’ll be part of my revenge! And out of that hatred my love came […]

CHRISTINE—What made you sit there? It’s his chair. I’ve so often seen him sitting there—(forcing a little laugh) Your silly talk about resemblances—Don’t sit there. Come. Bring that chair over here.

BRANT—If I could catch him alone, where no one would interfere, and let the best man come out alive—as I’ve often seen it done in the West!

CHRISTINE—This isn’t the West.

BRANT—I could insult him on the street before everyone and make him fight me! I could let him shoot first and then kill him in self-defense!

CHRISTINE—(scornfully) Do you imagine you could force him to fight a duel with you? Don’t you know dueling is illegal? Oh, no! He’d simply feel bound to his duty as a former judge and have you arrested! (She adds calculatingly, seeing he is boiling inside) It would be a poor revenge for your mother’s death to let him make you a laughing stock!

ORIN—Finally those islands came to mean everything that wasn't war, everything that was peace and warmth and security. I used to dream I was there. […] There was no one there but you and me. And yet I never saw you, that's the funny part. I only felt you all around me. The breaking of the waves was your voice. The sky was the same color as your eyes. The warm sand was like your skin. The whole island was you. […]

You’ve still got the same beautiful hair, Mother. That hasn’t changed. (He reaches up and touches her hair caressingly. She gives a little shudder of repulsion and draws away from him but he is too happy to notice). Oh, Mother, it’s going to be wonderful from now on! We’ll get Vinnie to marry Peter and there will just be you and I!

ORIN—Before I had gotten back I had to kill another in the same way. It was like murdering the same man twice. I had a queer feeling that war meant murdering the same man over and over, and that in the end I would discover the man was myself! Their faces keep coming back in dreams—and they change to Father’s face—or to mine— What does that mean, Vinnie?

LAVINIA—I don’t know! I’ve got to talk to you! For heaven’s sake, forget the war! It’s over now!

ORIN—Not inside us who killed!

ORIN—Vinnie! Do you realize what it would mean—?

LAVINIA—I realize only too well. You and I, who are innocent, would suffer a worse punishment than the guilty—for we'd have to live on! It would mean that Father's memory and that of all the honorable Mannon dead would be dragged through the horror of a murder trial! But I'd rather suffer that than let the murder of our father go unpunished!

ORIN—This is like my dream. I’ve killed him before—over and over!

LAVINIA—Orin!

ORIN—Do you remember me telling you how the faces of the men I killed came back and changed to Father’s face and finally became my own? (He smiles grimly.) He looks like me, too! Maybe I’ve committed suicide!

ORIN—I heard you planning to go with him to the island I had told you about—our island—that was you and I! […] But you’ll forget him! I’ll make you forget him! I’ll make you happy! We’ll leave Vinnie here and go on a long voyage—to the South Seas […]

LAVINIA—(with bitter scorn) Orin! After all that’s happened, are you becoming her crybaby again? […] Leave her alone! Go in the house! (As he hesitates—more sharply) Do you hear me? March! […] He paid the just penalty for his crime. You know it was justice. It was the only way true justice could be done.

LAVINIA—I loved those Islands. They finished setting me free. There was something there mysterious and beautiful—a good spirit—of love—coming out of the land and sea. It made me forget death. There was no hereafter. There was only this world—the warm earth in the moonlight […] the natives dancing naked and innocent—without knowledge of sin!

[…] Oh, Peter, hold me close to you! I want to feel love! Love is all beautiful! I never used to know that! I was a fool! (She kisses him passionately. He returns it, aroused and at the same time a little shocked by her boldness. She goes on longingly.) We’ll be married soon, won’t we […] We’ll make an island for ourselves on the land, and we’ll have children and love them and teach them to love life so that they can never be possessed by hate and death!

LAVINIA—What kind of history do you mean?

ORIN—A true history of all the family crimes, beginning with Grandfather Abe’s—all of the crimes, including ours, do you understand?

LAVINIA—(aghast) Do you mean to tell me you’ve actually written—

ORIN—Yes! I’ve tried to trace to its secret hiding place in the Mannon past the evil destiny behind our lives! I thought if I could see it clearly in the past I might be able to foretell what fate is in store for us, Vinnie—but I haven’t dared predict that […]

So many strange hidden things out of the Mannon past combine in you! For one example, do you remember the first mate, Wilkins, on the voyage to Frisco? […] Adam Brant was a ship’s officer, too, wasn’t he?

ORIN—(with a quiet mad insistence) Can’t you see I’m now in Father’s place and you’re Mother? That’s the evil destiny out of the past I hadn’t dared predict! I’m the Mannon you’re chained to!

LAVINIA—Kiss me! Hold me close! Want me! Want me so much you’d murder anyone to have me! I did that—for you! Take me in this house of the dead and love me! Our love will drive the dead away! It will shame them back into death […] Take me, Adam! [She is brought back to herself with a start by this name escaping her—bewilderedly, laughing idiotically) Adam? Why did I call you Adam? I never even heard that name before—outside of the Bible! (then suddenly with a hopeless, dead finality) Always the dead between! […]

PETER—Vinnie! You’re talking crazy! […] What happened to you on the Islands. Was it something there? Something to do with that native?

LAVINIA—[…] I won’t lie anymore! Orin suspected I’d lusted with him! And I had! […] He had me! I was his fancy woman!

LAVINIA—(in a dry, brittle tone) I remember your admiration for the naked native women. You said they had found the secret of happiness because they had never heard that love can be a sin.

BRANT—(surprised—sizing her up puzzledly) So you remember that, do you? (then romantically) Aye! And they live in as near the garden of paradise before sin was discovered as you'll find on this earth! Unless you've seen it, you can't picture the green beauty of their land set in the blue of the sea! The clouds like down on the mountain tops, the sun drowsing in your blood, and always the surf on the barrier reef singing a croon in your ears like a lullaby! The Blessed Isles, I call them! You can forget there all men's dirty dreams of greed and power!

CHRISTINE—I know you, Vinnie! I've watched you ever since you were little, trying to do exactly what you're doing now! You've tried to become the wife of your father and the mother of Orin! You've always schemed to steal my place!

LAVINIA—(wildly) No! It’s you who have stolen all love from me since the time I was born!

BRANT—[…] Does Orin by any chance resemble his father?

CHRISTINE—(stares at him—agitatedly) No! Of course not! What put such a stupid idea in your head? […] It was Orin you made me think of! It was Orin!

BRANT—I remember that night we were introduced and I heard the name Mrs. Ezra Mannon! By God, how I hated you then for being his! I thought, by God, I’ll take her from him and that’ll be part of my revenge! And out of that hatred my love came […]

CHRISTINE—What made you sit there? It’s his chair. I’ve so often seen him sitting there—(forcing a little laugh) Your silly talk about resemblances—Don’t sit there. Come. Bring that chair over here.

BRANT—If I could catch him alone, where no one would interfere, and let the best man come out alive—as I’ve often seen it done in the West!

CHRISTINE—This isn’t the West.

BRANT—I could insult him on the street before everyone and make him fight me! I could let him shoot first and then kill him in self-defense!

CHRISTINE—(scornfully) Do you imagine you could force him to fight a duel with you? Don’t you know dueling is illegal? Oh, no! He’d simply feel bound to his duty as a former judge and have you arrested! (She adds calculatingly, seeing he is boiling inside) It would be a poor revenge for your mother’s death to let him make you a laughing stock!

ORIN—Finally those islands came to mean everything that wasn't war, everything that was peace and warmth and security. I used to dream I was there. […] There was no one there but you and me. And yet I never saw you, that's the funny part. I only felt you all around me. The breaking of the waves was your voice. The sky was the same color as your eyes. The warm sand was like your skin. The whole island was you. […]

You’ve still got the same beautiful hair, Mother. That hasn’t changed. (He reaches up and touches her hair caressingly. She gives a little shudder of repulsion and draws away from him but he is too happy to notice). Oh, Mother, it’s going to be wonderful from now on! We’ll get Vinnie to marry Peter and there will just be you and I!

ORIN—Before I had gotten back I had to kill another in the same way. It was like murdering the same man twice. I had a queer feeling that war meant murdering the same man over and over, and that in the end I would discover the man was myself! Their faces keep coming back in dreams—and they change to Father’s face—or to mine— What does that mean, Vinnie?

LAVINIA—I don’t know! I’ve got to talk to you! For heaven’s sake, forget the war! It’s over now!

ORIN—Not inside us who killed!

ORIN—Vinnie! Do you realize what it would mean—?

LAVINIA—I realize only too well. You and I, who are innocent, would suffer a worse punishment than the guilty—for we'd have to live on! It would mean that Father's memory and that of all the honorable Mannon dead would be dragged through the horror of a murder trial! But I'd rather suffer that than let the murder of our father go unpunished!

ORIN—This is like my dream. I’ve killed him before—over and over!

LAVINIA—Orin!

ORIN—Do you remember me telling you how the faces of the men I killed came back and changed to Father’s face and finally became my own? (He smiles grimly.) He looks like me, too! Maybe I’ve committed suicide!

ORIN—I heard you planning to go with him to the island I had told you about—our island—that was you and I! […] But you’ll forget him! I’ll make you forget him! I’ll make you happy! We’ll leave Vinnie here and go on a long voyage—to the South Seas […]

LAVINIA—(with bitter scorn) Orin! After all that’s happened, are you becoming her crybaby again? […] Leave her alone! Go in the house! (As he hesitates—more sharply) Do you hear me? March! […] He paid the just penalty for his crime. You know it was justice. It was the only way true justice could be done.

LAVINIA—I loved those Islands. They finished setting me free. There was something there mysterious and beautiful—a good spirit—of love—coming out of the land and sea. It made me forget death. There was no hereafter. There was only this world—the warm earth in the moonlight […] the natives dancing naked and innocent—without knowledge of sin!

[…] Oh, Peter, hold me close to you! I want to feel love! Love is all beautiful! I never used to know that! I was a fool! (She kisses him passionately. He returns it, aroused and at the same time a little shocked by her boldness. She goes on longingly.) We’ll be married soon, won’t we […] We’ll make an island for ourselves on the land, and we’ll have children and love them and teach them to love life so that they can never be possessed by hate and death!

LAVINIA—What kind of history do you mean?

ORIN—A true history of all the family crimes, beginning with Grandfather Abe’s—all of the crimes, including ours, do you understand?

LAVINIA—(aghast) Do you mean to tell me you’ve actually written—

ORIN—Yes! I’ve tried to trace to its secret hiding place in the Mannon past the evil destiny behind our lives! I thought if I could see it clearly in the past I might be able to foretell what fate is in store for us, Vinnie—but I haven’t dared predict that […]

So many strange hidden things out of the Mannon past combine in you! For one example, do you remember the first mate, Wilkins, on the voyage to Frisco? […] Adam Brant was a ship’s officer, too, wasn’t he?

ORIN—(with a quiet mad insistence) Can’t you see I’m now in Father’s place and you’re Mother? That’s the evil destiny out of the past I hadn’t dared predict! I’m the Mannon you’re chained to!

LAVINIA—Kiss me! Hold me close! Want me! Want me so much you’d murder anyone to have me! I did that—for you! Take me in this house of the dead and love me! Our love will drive the dead away! It will shame them back into death […] Take me, Adam! [She is brought back to herself with a start by this name escaping her—bewilderedly, laughing idiotically) Adam? Why did I call you Adam? I never even heard that name before—outside of the Bible! (then suddenly with a hopeless, dead finality) Always the dead between! […]

PETER—Vinnie! You’re talking crazy! […] What happened to you on the Islands. Was it something there? Something to do with that native?

LAVINIA—[…] I won’t lie anymore! Orin suspected I’d lusted with him! And I had! […] He had me! I was his fancy woman!