Gender Roles Theme Analysis

RAMSDEN: You can refuse to accept the guardianship. I shall certainly refuse to hold it jointly with you.

TANNER: Yes; and what will she say to that? what does she say to it? Just that her father's wishes are sacred to her, and that she shall always look up to me as her guardian whether I care to face the responsibility or not. Refuse! You might as well refuse to accept the embraces of a boa constrictor when once it gets round your neck.

OCTAVIUS: Why, it is just because she is self-sacrificing that she will not sacrifice those she loves.

TANNER: That is the profoundest of mistakes, Tavy. It is the self-sacrificing women that sacrifice others most recklessly. Because they are unselfish, they are kind in little things. Because they have a purpose which is not their own purpose, but that of the whole universe, a man is nothing to them but an instrument of that purpose.

OCTAVIUS [collapsing upon his chair again]: What a frightful thing!

TANNER [with angry sarcasm]: Dreadful. Appalling. Worse than death, as Ramsden says. [He comes to Octavius]. What would you not give, Tavy, to turn it into a railway accident, with all her bones broken or something equally respectable and deserving of sympathy?

OCTAVIUS: Don't be brutal, Jack.

TANNER: Brutal! Good Heavens, man, what are you crying for? Here is a woman whom we all supposed to be making bad water color sketches, practising Grieg and Brahms, gadding about to concerts and parties, wasting her life and her money. We suddenly learn that she has turned from these sillinesses to the fulfilment of her highest purpose and greatest function—to increase, multiply and replenish the earth. And instead of admiring her courage and rejoicing in her instinct; instead of crowning the completed womanhood and raising the triumphal strain of "Unto us a child is born: unto us a son is given," here you are—you who have been as merry as Brigs in your mourning for the dead—all pulling long faces and looking as ashamed and disgraced as if the girl had committed the vilest of crimes.

TANNER: You must cower before the wedding ring like the rest of us, Ramsden. The cup of our ignominy is full.

TANNER: Why, man, what other work has she in life but to get a husband? It is a woman's business to get married as soon as possible, and a man's to keep unmarried as long as he can. You have your poems and your tragedies to work at: Ann has nothing.

OCTAVIUS: I cannot write without inspiration. And nobody can give me that except Ann.

TANNER: Well, hadn't you better get it from her at a safe distance? Petrarch didn't see half as much of Laura, nor Dante of Beatrice, as you see of Ann now; and yet they wrote first-rate poetry—at least so I'm told. They never exposed their idolatry to the test of domestic familiarity; and it lasted them to their graves. Marry Ann and at the end of a week you'll find no more inspiration than in a plate of muffins.

ANN: You are so utterly unreasonable and impracticable. What can I do?

TANNER: Do! Break your chains. Go your way according to your own conscience and not according to your mother's. Get your mind clean and vigorous; and learn to enjoy a fast ride in a motor car instead of seeing nothing in it but an excuse for a detestable intrigue. Come with me to Marseilles and across to Algiers and to Biskra, at sixty miles an hour. Come right down to the Cape if you like. That will be a Declaration of Independence with a vengeance. You can write a book about it afterwards. That will finish your mother and make a woman of you.

ANN [thoughtfully]: I don't think there would be any harm in that, Jack. You are my guardian: you stand in my father's place, by his own wish. Nobody could say a word against our travelling together. It would be delightful: thank you a thousand times, Jack. I'll come.

TANNER [aghast]: You'll come!!!

ANN: Of course.

TANNER [drily]: Get married and try. You may find it delightful for a while: you certainly won't find it ennobling. The greatest common measure of a man and a woman is not necessarily greater than the man's single measure.

HECTOR: Well, we think in America that a woman's moral number is higher than a man's, and that the purer nature of a woman lifts a man right out of himself, and makes him better than he was.

VIOLET: We can’t afford it. You can be as romantic as you please about love, Hector; but you mustn’t be romantic about money.

DON JUAN [determinedly]: I say the most licentious of human institutions: that is the secret of its popularity. And a woman seeking a husband is the most unscrupulous of all the beasts of prey. The confusion of marriage with morality has done more to destroy the conscience of the human race than any other single error. Come, Ana! do not look shocked: you know better than any of us that marriage is a mantrap baited with simulated accomplishments and delusive idealizations.

THE DEVIL: You, Senora, cannot come this way. You will have an apotheosis. But you will be at the palace before us.

ANA: That is not what I stopped you for. Tell me where can I find the Superman?

THE DEVIL: He is not yet created, Senora.

THE STATUE: And never will be, probably. Let us proceed: the red fire will make me sneeze. [They descend].

ANA: Not yet created! Then my work is not yet done. [Crossing herself devoutly] I believe in the Life to Come. [Crying to the universe] A father—a father for the Superman!

MALONE: You'll try to bring him to his senses, Violet: I know you will.

VIOLET: I had no idea he could be so headstrong. If he goes on like that, what can I do?

MALONE: Don't be discurridged: domestic pressure may be slow; but it's sure. You'll wear him down. Promise me you will.

VIOLET: I will do my best. Of course I think it's the greatest nonsense deliberately making us poor like that.

MALONE: Of course it is.

OCTAVIUS: But you are not bound to sacrifice yourself always to the wishes of your parents.

ANN: My father loved me. My mother loves me. Surely their wishes are a better guide than my own selfishness.

OCTAVIUS: Oh, I know how unselfish you are, Ann. But believe me—though I know I am speaking in my own interest—there is another side to this question. Is it fair to Jack to marry him if you do not love him? Is it fair to destroy my happiness as well as your own if you can bring yourself to love me?

ANN [looking at him with a faint impulse of pity]: Tavy, my dear, you are a nice creature—a good boy.

TANNER: Aha! there speaks the life instinct. You detest her; but you feel that you must get her married.

ANN: Flatterer. Why are you trying to fascinate me, Jack, if you don't want to marry me?

TANNER: The Life Force. I am in the grip of the Life Force.

TANNER. [continuing]: I solemnly say that I am not a happy man. Ann looks happy; but she is only triumphant, successful, victorious. That is not happiness, but the price for which the strong sell their happiness. What we have both done this afternoon is to renounce tranquillity, above all renounce the romantic possibilities of an unknown future, for the cares of a household and a family. I beg that no man may seize the occasion to get half drunk and utter imbecile speeches and coarse pleasantries at my expense. […] The wedding will take place three days after our return to England, by special license, at the office of the district superintendent registrar, in the presence of my solicitor and his clerk, who, like his clients, will be in ordinary walking dress—