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Islands represent the Mannons’ exoticization and discrimination against anything they see as foreign—a set of beliefs that eventually forces the family to isolate itself from the rest of the world. Ship captain Adam Brant, a Mannon cousin, frequently longs for his “romantic” adventures on the islands, while Orin confesses that he only survived his time in the Union army by fantasizing about the Pacific Islands he read about in the Herman Melville novel Typee. Then Lavinia, after convincing her brother to go on an island cruise, has a tryst with an island native named Avahanni. At first, then, this wealthy, white New England family uses islands to symbolize the purity and ease they feel they do not have access to in their daily lives. Lavinia confesses that her kiss with Avahanni was the only time she ever felt love as something “sweet and natural,” as opposed to her family’s incestuous relationships, just as Orin, despairing that his mother Christine has been corrupted, laments her as a “lost island.”
But as islands become more of a reality and less of a fantasy, the Mannons (with the exception of Lavinia) begin to dismiss the islanders as uncivilized and savage. In turn, these deep-seated—and implicitly racialized—prejudices then force the family to once again turn in on themselves, as the very islands that the Mannons hold up as a symbol of escape become the places they most demonize. It’s no wonder, then, that this tragic family ends the play trapped only with one another, confined within the walls of their stifling home—as if the Mannons were themselves “an island on the land,” cut off from any human connections beyond their own flesh and blood.
Islands Quotes in Mourning Becomes Electra
The Mourning Becomes Electra quotes below all refer to the symbol of Islands. 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:
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Homecoming: Act 1
Quotes
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!
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The Hunted: Act 2
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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!
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The Hunted: Act 5
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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.
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The Haunted: Act 1
Quotes
ORIN—Did you ask her why she stole Mother’s colors? I can’t see why—yet—and I don’t think she knows herself. But it will prove a strange reason, I’m certain of that, when I do discover it!
PETER—(surprised) You stopped at the Islands?
ORIN—Yes. […] But they turned out to be Vinnie’s islands, not mine. They only made me sick—and the naked women disgusted me. I guess I’m too much of a Mannon, after all, to turn into a pagan. But you have seen Vinnie with the men—!
[…] Handsome and romantic-looking, weren’t they, Vinnie?—with colored rags around their middles and flowers stuck over their ears! Oh, she was a bit shocked at first by their dances, but afterwards she fell in love with the Islanders! […] Oh, I wasn’t as blind as I pretended to be! Do you remember Avahanni?
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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!
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The Haunted: Act 4
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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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Islands Symbol Timeline in Mourning Becomes Electra
The timeline below shows where the symbol Islands appears in Mourning Becomes Electra. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Homecoming: Act 1
...ships and his adventures—including the indigenous women he met on a journey to the Blessed Isles—to her. When Brant tries to assure Vinnie that he only has eyes for her, Vinnie...
(full context)
Homecoming: Act 2
...Brant fantasizes about having a ship of his own and escaping with Christine to tropical islands in the South Pacific, but Christine is more realistic—she fears that she will grow too...
(full context)
...“you’ll never dare leave me now, Adam—for your ships or your sea or your naked Island girls—when I grow old and ugly.” For a moment, Christine catches Ezra’s painted eyes in...
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Homecoming: Act 3
...Ezra tells Christine that he wants to repair their marriage, even going away to an island together where they could rekindle their former spark. Unable to bear the mention of islands,...
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The Hunted: Act 2
...mother that he loves her more than anything, picturing her as one of the Pacific islands he read about in the novel Typee.
(full context)
The Hunted: Act 3
...his mother’s reaction to the poison, he becomes convinced of her guilt. “You’re my lost island,” Orin tells his mother, leaving the room. Distraught, Christine wonders aloud to Ezra’s dead body...
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The Hunted: Act 4
Brant and Christine now plan to escape to an island off the Chinese coast. The mention of islands makes Christine think of Orin—and when he...
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The Haunted: Act 1
...tries to change the topic, so Orin begins to think about their time on the islands. He hints to Vinnie that if he hadn’t taken her away from the islands, she...
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...is harsher, scoffing that Vinnie now wears green because of the “influence […] of the Islands.” Orin also asks why Vinnie has chosen to wear Christine’s colors in particular. Though Vinnie...
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...moment alone with each other. Vinnie confesses that she has missed Peter, explaining that the islands and the island people always made her think of him. Vinnie tells Peter that she...
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The Haunted: Act 2
...guilty that his distress is rubbing off on the innocent, calm Hazel. “She’s another lost island,” he laments. Orin tells Lavinia that the only way they can escape their guilt is...
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Orin pushes further, suggesting that the whole reason Lavinia loved the islands was because they reminded her of Brant. At last, Vinnie admits that she kissed the...
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