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Hazel Niles
Seth Beckwith is the Mannon family’s gardener who participates in each of the three plays’ chorus of villagers. Seth distrusts Christine and is loyal to Lavinia, helping the young woman piece together the story of her mother’s affair with Adam Brant (and offering his own insights into Brant’s parentage). Later, as Lavinia becomes more culpable in the family’s crimes, Seth covers for her, reluctantly but faithfully spreading the rumors she tells him to the other townspeople. In the final moments of The Haunted, when Lavinia decides that she must “punish herself” by locking herself inside the oppressive Mannon home, Seth once again aids her, even as it pains him—suggesting that he is loyal to Lavinia even if that means helping her destroy herself. Offstage, Seth is often drunkenly singing the sea chanty “Shenandoah,” the lyrics of which underscore and foreshadow to the Mannon family’s lives.
Seth Beckwith Quotes in Mourning Becomes Electra
The Mourning Becomes Electra quotes below are all either spoken by Seth Beckwith or refer to Seth Beckwith. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
The Haunted: Act 4
Quotes
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!
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LAVINIA—I’m not going the way Mother and Orin went. That’s escaping punishment. And there’s no one left to punish me. I’m the last Mannon. I’ve got to punish myself! Living alone here with the dead is a worse act of justice than death or prison! I’ll never go out or see anyone! I’ll have the shutters nailed close so no sunlight can ever get in. I’ll live alone with the dead, and keep their secrets, and let them hound me, until the curse is paid out and the last Mannon is let die! […] It takes the Mannons to punish themselves for being born!
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Seth Beckwith Quotes in Mourning Becomes Electra
The Mourning Becomes Electra quotes below are all either spoken by Seth Beckwith or refer to Seth Beckwith. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
The Haunted: Act 4
Quotes
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!
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Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
LAVINIA—I’m not going the way Mother and Orin went. That’s escaping punishment. And there’s no one left to punish me. I’m the last Mannon. I’ve got to punish myself! Living alone here with the dead is a worse act of justice than death or prison! I’ll never go out or see anyone! I’ll have the shutters nailed close so no sunlight can ever get in. I’ll live alone with the dead, and keep their secrets, and let them hound me, until the curse is paid out and the last Mannon is let die! […] It takes the Mannons to punish themselves for being born!
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