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).
Quote #4
LAVINIA: […] Who murdered Father?
ORIN: Brant did—for revenge because—
LAVINIA: Who murdered Father? Answer me!
ORIN: Mother was under his influence—
LAVINIA: That's a lie! It was he who was under hers. You know the truth!
ORIN: Yes.
LAVINIA: If we'd done our duty under the law, she would have been hanged, wouldn't she?
ORIN: Yes.
LAVINIA: But we protected her. She could've lived, couldn't she? But she chose to kill herself as a punishment for her crime—of her own free will! It was an act of justice! You had nothing to do with it! You see that now, don't you? Tell me!
ORIN: Yes. (The Haunted, Act 1, Scene 2)
It seems like Lavinia is content to play judge, jury, and executioner. She's still struggling to manipulate her brother into believing that what they did was right and that Christine was to blame for her own death. Like mother, like daughter. Lavinia hated Christine; it's easy for her to see the justice in her death. But Orin can't give up trying to exonerate his mommy. She couldn't have been bad; Adam made her do it. Since she wasn't to blame, she didn't deserve to die.
Quote #5
ORIN: It's wise for you to keep Hazel away from me, I warn you. Because when I see love for a murderer in her eyes my guilt crowds up in my throat like poisonous vomit and I long to spit it out—and confess!
LAVINIA: Yes, that is what I live in terror of—that in one of your fits you'll say something before someone—now after it's all past and forgotten—when there isn't the slightest suspicion—
ORIN: Were you hoping you could escape retribution? You can't! Confess and atone to the full extent of the law! That's the only way to wash the guilt of our mother's blood from our souls!
LAVINIA: Sssshh! Will you stop!
ORIN: Ask our father, the Judge, if it isn't! He knows! He keeps telling me! (The Haunted, Act 2)
Orin's outburst about atonement and bloodguilt might have a psychotic tinge, but he's really the only one who's seeing things clearly. Lavinia's been wrapped up in a haze of rationalization. As long as no on suspects, there's no crime. Orin knows better.
Quote #6
ORIN: […] For the love of God, let's go now and confess and pay the penalty for Mother's murder, and find peace together!
LAVINIA: Peace! No! You coward! There is nothing to confess! There was only justice!
ORIN: You hear her? You'll find Lavinia Mannon harder to break than me! You'll have to haunt her and hound her for a lifetime!
LAVINIA: I hate you! I wish you were dead! You're too vile to live! You'd kill yourself if you weren't a coward!
ORIN: Vinnie!
LAVINIA: I mean it! I mean it!
ORIN: Vinnie! Another act of justice, eh? You want to drive me to suicide as I drove Mother! An eye for an eye, is that it? But— Yes! That would be justice—now you are Mother! She is speaking now through you! (The Haunted, Act 3)
Orin now sees no other punishment for his crimes except suicide. He's tried to purge himself of his guilt by his obsessive writing about the family's "crimes", but it doesn't work.
Quote #7
HAZEL: You don't want her to marry Peter?
ORIN: No! She can't have happiness! She's got to be punished! And listen, Hazel! You mustn't love me any more. The only love I can know now is the love of guilt for guilt which breeds more guilt--until you get so deep at the bottom of hell there is no lower you can sink and you rest there in peace! (The Haunted, Act 3)
Here's an interesting perspective on what the worst kind of punishment is—being denied the ability to love or be loved. Orin's guilt about his mommy's death makes him give up his only shot of happiness. He's reached rock-bottom.
Quote #8
HAZEL: Do you want to take the risk of driving Peter to do what Orin did? He might—if he ever discovered the truth.
LAVINIA: What truth, you little fool! Discover what?
HAZEL: I don't know—but you know. Look in your heart and ask your conscience before God if you ought to marry Peter!
LAVINIA: Yes! Before God! Before anything! You leave me alone—go away—or I'll get Orin's pistol and kill you!
HAZEL: Oh! You are wicked! I believe you would—! Vinnie! What's made you like this?
LAVINIA: Go away!
HAZEL: Vinnie! All right. I'll go. All I can do is trust you. I know in your heart you can't be dead to all honor and justice—you, a Mannon! At least you owe it to Peter to let him read what Orin had in that envelope. (The Haunted, Act 4)
Poor Hazel. If there's one thing that should be pretty clear by now, is that being a Mannon doesn't necessarily mean you know anything about honor and justice.
Quote #9
SETH: Don't go in there, Vinnie!
LAVINIA: Don't be afraid. 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 worse than death or prison! I'll never go out or see anyone! I'll have the shutters nailed closed 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! I know they will see to it I live for a long time. It takes the Mannons to punish themselves for being born!
Lavinia saves the worst punishment for herself. Unable to purge herself of her guilt, shuts herself up in the tomb—we mean, the house. She slams the door, shutting off any possibility for love or hope and sentencing herself to a life of total despair and isolation. We guess O'Neill achieved his goal of having Electra/Lavinia punished for her sins. But the gods don't have to lift a finger; she punishes herself.