How we cite our quotes: (Name of Play, Act #)
Quote #1
BRANT: My mother sewed for a living and sent me to school. She was very strict with me. […] But she was bound she'd make a gentleman of me […] if it took her last cent and her last strap! She didn't succeed, as you notice. At seventeen I ran away to sea—and forgot I had a mother, except I took a part of her name—Brant was short and easy on ships—and I wouldn't wear the name of Mannon. I forgot her until two years ago when I came back from the East. Oh, I'd written to her now and then and sent her money when I happened to have any. But I'd forgotten her just the same—and when I got to New York I found her dying—of sickness and starvation! And I found out that when she'd been laid up, not able to work, not knowing where to reach me, she'd sunk her last shred of pride and written to your father asking for a loan. He never answered her—and deliberately let her die! He's as guilty of murder as anyone he ever sent to the rope when he was a judge!
LAVINIA: You dare say that about Father! If he were here—
BRANT: I wish to God he was! I'd tell him what I tell you now—that I swore on my mother's body I'd revenge her death on him. (Homecoming, Act 1)
Brant makes a pretty convincing case for the fact that Ezra is responsible for his mother's death. Maybe this whole disgraceful affair of the Mannons disowning David because of his affair with Marie Brantôme is the original injustice that the entire family ends up paying the price for. Ezra gets killed for "murdering" David and Marie, Brant and Christine die for killing Ezra, Orin dies because he thinks he killed his mother, and Lavinia's left with a living death as her punishment.
Quote #2
BRANT: If I ever laid hands on him, I'd kill him!
CHRISTINE: And then? You would be hanged for murder! And where would I be? There would be nothing left for me but to kill myself!
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: 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 do his duty as a former judge and have you arrested. It would be a poor revenge for your mother's death to let him make you a laughingstock! (Homecoming, Act 2)
O'Neill's telling us something about how the law works to protect the powerful. Christine knows how easily Ezra could ruin Brant's life. So all Brant's naïve fantasies about fighting him in a fair fight are just that—fantasies.
Quote #3
CHRISTINE: If he had only been killed, we could be married now and I would bring you my share of the Mannon estate. That would only be justice. It's yours by right. It's what his father stole from yours.
BRANT: That's true enough, damn him! (Homecoming, Act 2)
The Mannon ladies are good at convincing the men in their lives that they're only concerned about what these poor fellows deserve. But we highly doubt that justice is really what Christine's after. She just wants Adam for herself, but she knows that the justice angle is a killer argument (no pun intended).