Captain Adam Brant

Character Analysis

What's not to love about Adam Brant? Dashing, romantic, a man who lives a life of adventure upon the open sea—is there anything that we're forgetting? Oh, right: he's an adulterous accomplice to murder hell-bent on revenge. We can't be too harsh on him, though; he has a sympathetic backstory.

Brant's the out-of-wedlock (so shocking in the 1800s) son of Ezra Mannon's brother David and the lowly family nursemaid Marie Brantôme. David's father disowns him and throws him out of the family. Brant grows up and goes to sea; he's now the captain of a clipper ship called the "Flying Trades." The way Brant tells it, his old man never quite got over being ostracized by his family, and eventually hanged himself, leaving Brant and his poor and starving mother alone to fend for themselves. Marie eventually dies from poverty and starvation, after unsuccessfully begging for help from Ezra Mannon. Like Aegisthus, Clytemnestra's lover in The Oresteia< who is furious with Agamemnon's family, Brant has good reason for wanting revenge against the Mannons.

Far From the Tree—Kind Of

Brant looks a whole lot like Ezra and Orin Mannon, a fact that leads the groundskeeper to suspect his identity in the first place and that leads us to be creeped out that Christine's sleeping with her son's double. But he's different from the Mannons in some important ways that we're led to assume is because of his mother's lively, authentic, and uninhibited personality.

As a sailor who's traveled everywhere and goes more or less where he pleases, he represents a kind of freedom and love of life. That's why he seems so attractive to the major female characters in Mourning Becomes Electra. His emotional life hasn't been in lockdown like the other Mannon men. Christine describes him as tender and romantic. Even though he first seeks out Christine just to stick it to Ezra, he can't hang on to his revenge fantasies. He's just not as cold and calculating as everyone else:

BRANT: I remember the night we were introduced and I heard the name Mrs. Ezra Mannon! By God, how I hated you for being his! I thought, by God, I'll take her from him and that'll be part of my revenge! And out of that my love came! It's damned queer, isn't it? (Homecoming, Act 2)

Another difference is that, to Brant's credit, he wants to be honest and open with Ezra about wanting Christine. He's had it with sneaking around:

BRANT: We've got to decide what we must do. The time for skulking and lying is over—and by God, I'm glad of it! It's a coward's game I have no stomach for! (Homecoming, Act 2)

Even after Christine begs him to murder Ezra, he insists on being a man about it, to challenge Mannon to a duel and let the best man win rather than use deceit to kill him off without a chance. Christine, however, has other plans, and being the manipulative viper that she is, she manages to convince Brant that her way is the right way.

BRANT: Poison! It's a coward's trick!

CHRISTINE: Do you think you would be braver to give me up to him and let him take away your ship?

BRANT: No!

CHRISTINE: Didn't you say you wanted to kill him?

BRANT: Aye! But I'd give him his chance!

CHRISTINE: Did he give your mother her chance?

BRANT: No, damn him!

CHRISTINE: Then what makes you suddenly so scrupulous about his death? It must be the Mannon in you coming out! Are you going to prove, the first time your love is put to a real test, that you're a weak coward like your father?

BRANT: Christine! If it was any man said that to me--!

CHRISTINE: Have you thought of this side of his homecoming--that he's coming back to my bed? If you love me as much as you claim, I should think that would rid you of any scruples! If it was a question of some woman taking you from me, I wouldn't have qualms about which was or wasn't the way to kill her! But perhaps your love has been only a lie you told me--to take the sneaking revenge on him of being a backstairs lover! Perhaps--

BRANT: Stop it! I'll do anything you want! You know it! And you're right. I'm a damn fool to have any feeling about how Ezra Mannon dies!

Whoa, she's good. Christine goads Brant into going along with her plot and he totally gets suckered in. It's a shame he didn't have a chance to tell Christine that he was right all along one last time before Orin shoots him dead in a jealous rage.