How we cite our quotes: (Name of Play, Act #)
Quote #7
BORDEN: I couldn't believe the news. Who'd ever suspect--It's queer. It's like fate.
MRS. HILLS: Maybe it is fate. You remember, Everett, you've always said about the Mannons that pride goeth before a fall and that some day God would humble them in their sinful pride.
HILLS: I don't remember ever saying—(The Hunted, Act 1)
Just in case we missed the point, the playwright lets his Greek chorus clue us in that fate's in control of this story.
Quote #8
CHRISTINE: I was like you once—long ago—before—If I could only have stayed as I was then! Why can't all of us remain innocent and loving and trusting? But God won't leave us alone. He twists and wrings and tortures our lives with others' lives until—we poison each other to death! (The Hunted, Act 1)
Christine's feeling completely out of control of her life. All this tragedy is God's doing. The Calvinist idea of predestination —that our fate's determined before we're born—would have been a belief of many Puritans of her time.
Quote #9
LAVINIA: It was Brant who got you this--medicine to make you sleep--wasn't it?
CHRISTINE: No! No! No!
LAVINIA: You're telling me it was. I knew it--but I wanted to make sure.
CHRISTINE: Ezra! Don't let her harm Adam! I am the only guilty one! Don't let Orin--! (Then, as if she read some answer in the dead man's face, she stops in terror and, her eyes still fixed on his face, backs to the door and rushes out.) (The Hunted, Act 3)
Here's a great example of how you just can't escape fate. Christine, realizing that Lavinia's on to Brant's involvement in Ezra's murder, rushes out of the house to warn Brant. But in doing that, all she does is lead Orin and Lavinia right to him.