The Visit

by

Friedrich Dürrenmatt

Claire Zachanassian Character Analysis

Claire is a fateful figure, having returned to Güllen after forty-five years to seek revenge upon Alfred Ill, a man who betrayed her in her youth. She was driven from town at seventeen after Ill falsely denied fathering her child and bribed two men to corroborate his claims. Exiled and without resources, Claire turned to prostitution, through which she met her first husband, the incredibly wealthy oil tycoon Zachanassian. Now the wealthiest woman in the world, Claire intends to buy herself justice, offering the townspeople of Güllen one billion dollars to improve their failing town in exchange for Ill’s execution. Claire is a formidable presence, disarming people with her brutal honesty and her low regard for the lives or feelings of others. She treats her husbands poorly, casually divorcing and marrying them to satisfy her own whims. Worse, she had Koby and Loby castrated, blinded, and shipped around the world like chattel. Perhaps her disregard for human life stems in part from her own apparent inhumanness—she is not a mere woman, but something “indestructible,” “an avenging goddess,” an assemblage of prostheses seemingly held together by hate. But as terrible as she is, Claire is also sympathetic—a woman scorned, who never stopped loving the man who wronged her.

Claire Zachanassian Quotes in The Visit

The The Visit quotes below are all either spoken by Claire Zachanassian or refer to Claire Zachanassian. 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:
Justice, Morality, and Money Theme Icon
).
Act 1 Quotes

Two gangsters from Manhattan, sentenced to die in the electric chair at Sing Sing. Released at my request to carry my sedan chair. One million dollars per petition is what it cost me. The sedan chair comes from the Louvre, a gift from the French president. A nice gentleman. Looks just like he does in the papers. Carry me into town, Roby and Toby.

Related Characters: Claire Zachanassian (speaker), Roby and Toby
Page Number: 17-18
Explanation and Analysis:

ILL: I wish time were suspended, my little sorceress. If only life hadn’t torn us apart.

CLAIRE ZACHANASSIAN: You wish that?

ILL: Just that, nothing else. You know I love you! (He kisses her right hand.) The same cool white hand.

CLAIRE ZACHANASSIAN: You’re wrong. Another prosthesis. Ivory.

ILL: (Dropping her hand, horrified) Clara, is everything about you artificial?!

Related Characters: Claire Zachanassian (speaker)
Page Number: 26
Explanation and Analysis:

You have remained unforgettable. Truly. Your academic achievements are still held up as an example by our educators, especially the interest you showed in the most important subject, botany and zoology, thus expressing your sympathy with every living being, indeed with all creatures in need of protection. Even then, your love of justice and your charitable nature were widely admired.

Related Characters: Mayor (speaker), Claire Zachanassian
Page Number: 29
Explanation and Analysis:

CLAIRE ZACHANASSIAN: I will tell you the condition. I will give you a billion, and with that billion I will buy myself justice.

MAYOR: What exactly do you mean by that, Madam?

CLAIRE ZACHANASSIAN: I mean what I said.

MAYOR: But justice can’t be bought!

CLAIRE ZACHANASSIAN: Everything can be bought.

Related Characters: Claire Zachanassian (speaker), Mayor (speaker)
Page Number: 31
Explanation and Analysis:

Correct. Chief Justice Hofer. Forty-five years ago I was Chief Justice of Güllen and then moved on to the Court of Appeal in Kaffigen, until twenty-five years ago Mrs. Zachanassian offered me the opportunity to enter her service as her butler. I accepted. A peculiar career for a man of learning, perhaps, but the salary was so fantastic—

Related Characters: Butler (speaker), Claire Zachanassian
Page Number: 31
Explanation and Analysis:

BUTLER: What happened to you?

CLAIRE ZACHANASSIAN: I became a prostitute.

BUTLER: Why?

CLAIRE ZACHANASSIAN: The court’s verdict turned me into one.

Related Characters: Claire Zachanassian (speaker), Butler (speaker)
Page Number: 34
Explanation and Analysis:

Life has gone on, but I have forgotten nothing, Ill. Neither the woods of Konradsweil nor Petersen’s barn, neither Widow Boll’s bedroom nor your treachery. Now we have grown old, the two of us, you down at the heels and me cut to pieces by surgeons’ knives, and now I want us both to settle accounts: you chose your life and forced me into mine. You wanted time to be suspended, just a moment ago, in the woods of our youth, so full of impermanence. Now I have suspended it, and now I want justice, justice for a billion.

Related Characters: Claire Zachanassian (speaker), Alfred Ill
Page Number: 35
Explanation and Analysis:

Mrs. Zachanassian, we are still in Europe; we’re not savages yet. In the name of the town of Güllen I reject your offer. In the name of humanity. We would rather be poor than have blood on our hands.

Related Characters: Mayor (speaker), Claire Zachanassian
Page Number: 35
Explanation and Analysis:
Act 2 Quotes

Zachanassian’s favorite piece. He always wanted to hear it. Every morning. He had class, all right, that old tycoon with his tremendous fleet of oil tankers and his racing stables, and billions in the bank. A marriage like that was still worthwhile. A great teacher, a great dancer, a master of all sorts of devilry. I learned all his tricks.

Related Characters: Claire Zachanassian (speaker)
Page Number: 39
Explanation and Analysis:
Act 3 Quotes

Human kindness, gentlemen, is made for the purses of millionaires. With financial power like mine, you can afford yourself a new world order. The world made a whore of me, now I’ll make a whorehouse of the world. Pay up or get off the dance floor. You want to join the dance? Only paying customers merit respect. And believe me, I’ll pay. Güllen for a murder, boom times for a corpse.

Related Characters: Claire Zachanassian (speaker)
Page Number: 72
Explanation and Analysis:

If he tries to expose Clara by claiming she put a price on his head or something like that, when actually it was just an expression of unspeakable suffering, we’ll just have to take action.

Related Characters: First–Fourth Men (speaker), Claire Zachanassian
Page Number: 75
Explanation and Analysis:

The temptation is too great and our poverty is too wretched. But I know something else. I too will take part in it. I can feel myself slowly turning into a murderer. My faith in humanity is powerless. And because I know this, I have turned into a drunk. I am scared, Ill, just as you have been scared. I still know that some day an old lady will visit us too, and that then what is happening to you now will happen to us, but soon, maybe in a few hours, I will no longer know it.

Related Characters: Teacher (speaker), Claire Zachanassian, Alfred Ill
Page Number: 85
Explanation and Analysis:

ILL: The town’s holding a meeting this evening. They’ll sentence me to death and one of them will kill me. I don’t know who he will be or where it will happen, I only know that I’m ending a meaningless life.

CLAIRE ZACHANASSIAN: I loved you. You betrayed me. But the dream of life, of love, of trust—this dream that was a reality once—I haven’t forgotten that. I want to rebuild it with my billions, I will change the past, by destroying you.

Related Characters: Claire Zachanassian (speaker), Alfred Ill (speaker)
Page Number: 98
Explanation and Analysis:

MAYOR: The Claire Zachanassian Endowment has been accepted. Unanimously. Not for the sake of the money—

THE COMMUNITY: Not for the sake of the money—

MAYOR: But for the sake of justice—

THE COMMUNITY: But for the sake of justice—

MAYOR: And to allay our conscience.

THE COMMUNITY: And to allay our conscience.

MAYOR: For we cannot live if we sanction a crime in our midst—

THE COMMUNITY: For we cannot live if we sanction a crime in our midst—

Related Characters: Mayor (speaker), Claire Zachanassian, Alfred Ill
Page Number: 104-105
Explanation and Analysis:
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Claire Zachanassian Quotes in The Visit

The The Visit quotes below are all either spoken by Claire Zachanassian or refer to Claire Zachanassian. 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:
Justice, Morality, and Money Theme Icon
).
Act 1 Quotes

Two gangsters from Manhattan, sentenced to die in the electric chair at Sing Sing. Released at my request to carry my sedan chair. One million dollars per petition is what it cost me. The sedan chair comes from the Louvre, a gift from the French president. A nice gentleman. Looks just like he does in the papers. Carry me into town, Roby and Toby.

Related Characters: Claire Zachanassian (speaker), Roby and Toby
Page Number: 17-18
Explanation and Analysis:

ILL: I wish time were suspended, my little sorceress. If only life hadn’t torn us apart.

CLAIRE ZACHANASSIAN: You wish that?

ILL: Just that, nothing else. You know I love you! (He kisses her right hand.) The same cool white hand.

CLAIRE ZACHANASSIAN: You’re wrong. Another prosthesis. Ivory.

ILL: (Dropping her hand, horrified) Clara, is everything about you artificial?!

Related Characters: Claire Zachanassian (speaker)
Page Number: 26
Explanation and Analysis:

You have remained unforgettable. Truly. Your academic achievements are still held up as an example by our educators, especially the interest you showed in the most important subject, botany and zoology, thus expressing your sympathy with every living being, indeed with all creatures in need of protection. Even then, your love of justice and your charitable nature were widely admired.

Related Characters: Mayor (speaker), Claire Zachanassian
Page Number: 29
Explanation and Analysis:

CLAIRE ZACHANASSIAN: I will tell you the condition. I will give you a billion, and with that billion I will buy myself justice.

MAYOR: What exactly do you mean by that, Madam?

CLAIRE ZACHANASSIAN: I mean what I said.

MAYOR: But justice can’t be bought!

CLAIRE ZACHANASSIAN: Everything can be bought.

Related Characters: Claire Zachanassian (speaker), Mayor (speaker)
Page Number: 31
Explanation and Analysis:

Correct. Chief Justice Hofer. Forty-five years ago I was Chief Justice of Güllen and then moved on to the Court of Appeal in Kaffigen, until twenty-five years ago Mrs. Zachanassian offered me the opportunity to enter her service as her butler. I accepted. A peculiar career for a man of learning, perhaps, but the salary was so fantastic—

Related Characters: Butler (speaker), Claire Zachanassian
Page Number: 31
Explanation and Analysis:

BUTLER: What happened to you?

CLAIRE ZACHANASSIAN: I became a prostitute.

BUTLER: Why?

CLAIRE ZACHANASSIAN: The court’s verdict turned me into one.

Related Characters: Claire Zachanassian (speaker), Butler (speaker)
Page Number: 34
Explanation and Analysis:

Life has gone on, but I have forgotten nothing, Ill. Neither the woods of Konradsweil nor Petersen’s barn, neither Widow Boll’s bedroom nor your treachery. Now we have grown old, the two of us, you down at the heels and me cut to pieces by surgeons’ knives, and now I want us both to settle accounts: you chose your life and forced me into mine. You wanted time to be suspended, just a moment ago, in the woods of our youth, so full of impermanence. Now I have suspended it, and now I want justice, justice for a billion.

Related Characters: Claire Zachanassian (speaker), Alfred Ill
Page Number: 35
Explanation and Analysis:

Mrs. Zachanassian, we are still in Europe; we’re not savages yet. In the name of the town of Güllen I reject your offer. In the name of humanity. We would rather be poor than have blood on our hands.

Related Characters: Mayor (speaker), Claire Zachanassian
Page Number: 35
Explanation and Analysis:
Act 2 Quotes

Zachanassian’s favorite piece. He always wanted to hear it. Every morning. He had class, all right, that old tycoon with his tremendous fleet of oil tankers and his racing stables, and billions in the bank. A marriage like that was still worthwhile. A great teacher, a great dancer, a master of all sorts of devilry. I learned all his tricks.

Related Characters: Claire Zachanassian (speaker)
Page Number: 39
Explanation and Analysis:
Act 3 Quotes

Human kindness, gentlemen, is made for the purses of millionaires. With financial power like mine, you can afford yourself a new world order. The world made a whore of me, now I’ll make a whorehouse of the world. Pay up or get off the dance floor. You want to join the dance? Only paying customers merit respect. And believe me, I’ll pay. Güllen for a murder, boom times for a corpse.

Related Characters: Claire Zachanassian (speaker)
Page Number: 72
Explanation and Analysis:

If he tries to expose Clara by claiming she put a price on his head or something like that, when actually it was just an expression of unspeakable suffering, we’ll just have to take action.

Related Characters: First–Fourth Men (speaker), Claire Zachanassian
Page Number: 75
Explanation and Analysis:

The temptation is too great and our poverty is too wretched. But I know something else. I too will take part in it. I can feel myself slowly turning into a murderer. My faith in humanity is powerless. And because I know this, I have turned into a drunk. I am scared, Ill, just as you have been scared. I still know that some day an old lady will visit us too, and that then what is happening to you now will happen to us, but soon, maybe in a few hours, I will no longer know it.

Related Characters: Teacher (speaker), Claire Zachanassian, Alfred Ill
Page Number: 85
Explanation and Analysis:

ILL: The town’s holding a meeting this evening. They’ll sentence me to death and one of them will kill me. I don’t know who he will be or where it will happen, I only know that I’m ending a meaningless life.

CLAIRE ZACHANASSIAN: I loved you. You betrayed me. But the dream of life, of love, of trust—this dream that was a reality once—I haven’t forgotten that. I want to rebuild it with my billions, I will change the past, by destroying you.

Related Characters: Claire Zachanassian (speaker), Alfred Ill (speaker)
Page Number: 98
Explanation and Analysis:

MAYOR: The Claire Zachanassian Endowment has been accepted. Unanimously. Not for the sake of the money—

THE COMMUNITY: Not for the sake of the money—

MAYOR: But for the sake of justice—

THE COMMUNITY: But for the sake of justice—

MAYOR: And to allay our conscience.

THE COMMUNITY: And to allay our conscience.

MAYOR: For we cannot live if we sanction a crime in our midst—

THE COMMUNITY: For we cannot live if we sanction a crime in our midst—

Related Characters: Mayor (speaker), Claire Zachanassian, Alfred Ill
Page Number: 104-105
Explanation and Analysis: