"Little home in the country! I wish you could have seen the little home in the country where you had me in jail till I was sixteen!"
Anna listens to her father excoriate the sea and tout the virtues of the land and cannot help but call out his hypocrisy—it is on land that she was abused and fell into sin, and it is on the sea where she feels cleansed. Her frankness is what makes her such a compelling character, for instead of meekly listening to her father minimize his own bad behavior and spout off absurdities about the sea's evil nature, she calls him out on both. She is tired of men controlling the narrative and she has no qualms about setting it straight.
"But don't ever say again he ain't good enough for me. It's me ain't good enough for him."
This is a melancholy quote, for Anna has internalized the patriarchal hypocrisy regarding prostitution—that the woman who sells her body bears the moral weight and the man who purchases her body is blameless. For Anna, this means she is not worthy of the love of a man like Mat, and though this is rather ironic given the fact that Mat isn't exactly a sterling figure, it is nonetheless heartrending.
"'Tis only on the sea he's free, and him roving the face of the world, seeing all things, and not giving a damn for saving up money..."
Mat explicitly associates the sea with masculinity, or, rather, asserts that life on the sea is best suited to a man. He uses the words "free" and "roving," terms usually associated with men. He admires the sea's brutality and capriciousness and claims that a man like Chris, who fears the sea, is not a man at all. Mat's assertions are typical of a man in a patriarchal society, as he is allowed to be unmoored and free from obligations while a woman who tries to do that is censured or punished.
"You're just like all the rest of them—you two! Gawd, you'd think I was a piece of furniture!"
This famous line from the play exemplifies Anna's feminist forthrightness. She was both trying to escape men's control by coming to stay with her father and hoping to be with Mat on her own terms, but both of them cannot help their masculine natures and end up trying to control her. This is endlessly frustrating to her because she had hoped things would be better, but these two men who are supposed to love her are no better than her past clients. While a more demure woman might internalize this frustration or burst into tears, Anna is true to herself and yells at them.
"I was caged in, I tell you—yust like in jail—taking care of other people's kids—listening to 'em bawling and crying day and night—when I wanted to be out—and I was lonesome—lonesome as hell!... So I give up finally. What was the use?"
There are important details in this passage that give nuance to Anna's history. While we do not want to discount the role that her abandonment by her father played in her life, or her cousin's assault of her, it is clear that Anna did make a choice to enter prostitution. She was not forced into this profession, she was not completely destitute, she was not utterly bereft of choice.
"It's dat ole davil, sea, do this to me!... It's her dirty tricks! It vas all right on the barge with yust you and me. Den she bring that Irish fallar in fog, she make you like him, she make you fight with me all the time!"
While Chris is certainly a good man, a kind man, and a simple man, he is also completely superstitious and delusional to the extent that it damages his relationships with actual human beings. Here he blames the sea for ruining what he and Anna had together, and elsewhere he blames the sea for what happened to Anna. He takes no responsibility for his own actions and also chooses not to understand that the sea is not human or divine and is thus utterly indifferent and amoral. It's clearly easier to blame the sea than to blame oneself, but Chris isn't winning either way.
"Ha—ha—ha! It's funny, funny! I'll die laughing!"
Anna finds out that both her father and her (briefly) estranged lover are shipping off together on the same ship and cannot stop laughing. But this is laughter resulting not from amusement, but from despair, powerlessness, and rage. Laughter is the only approach to a situation like this that is coincidental but redolent of so much pain and loss.
"Fog, fog, fog, all the bloody time. You can't see vhere you vas going, no. Only dat ole davil, sea—she knows!" [The two stare at him. From the harbor comes the muffled, mournful wail of steamers' whistles.]
These final lines of the play, consisting of Chris's words and O'Neill's stage directions, belie the assumption that this is a happy ending. Certainly, yes, Chris may be complaining about the sea as is his cranky wont, but here he's almost talking to himself, not defensively trying to explain his own bad behavior. It's as if he sees something we don't, as if perhaps he was right all along. The fog is also a symbol of creeping menace, of obscurity and claustrophobia, and its evocation here is disturbing. And finally, the "mournful wail" of steamers is a troubling note; there's nothing hopeful or upbeat about these lines.
"I'm wise to the game, up, down, and sideways. I ain't been born and dragged up on on the water front for nothin'. Think I'd make trouble, huh? Not me!"
Marthy is an audience favorite, as she's funny, earthy, brash, honest, and authentic. She says what the audience thinks, possesses a wary and discerning eye, and, though she has clearly had her own ebbs in fortune, retains kindness and empathy that she willingly gives to another woman experiencing such ebbs. She tells Chris in this quote that she plans to make no trouble for him when Anna arrives, and it's her frank good humor that shines here and everywhere else.
Chris: "Don't you tan she vas pooty, Larry?"
Larry: [Rising to the occasion.] "Sure! A peach!"
Both Larry and Marthy clock Anna for what she really is, but poor Chris has no idea. It's surprising that a man who is currently sleeping with a prostitute (of sorts) cannot recognize one who walks into the bar, but this is more than just stupidity or authorial negligence. He thinks Anna is beautiful and classy because that's what he wants to see; it's what he needs to see in the daughter he abandoned to her own fate. She must be okay because that way he can tell himself his actions, while not totally justifiable, had no deleterious impact.
