Symbol: The House
Most of the Mannons and the townspeople seem to hate the imposing edifice that is the Mannon house, but Christine voices this hate most emphatically: "Each time I come back it appears more like a sepulchre! The 'whited' one of the Bible—pagan temple stuck like a mask on Puritan gray ugliness!" (237). The house is thus a symbol of the Mannons themselves—closed, secretive, cruel, imposing, stately, austere, and masked.
Motif: Eyes
Eyes are everywhere in this text. The Mannons try to maintain their mask-like faces so no one can tell what they are thinking, and are consequently looking at everyone else's eyes to discern their thoughts. Ezra even asks Christine to close her eyes when he is trying to tell her his deepest feelings because he does not want to see either her apathy or disgust. The portraits also have eyes—eyes that frighten Christine, or fill Lavinia with conviction, or anger Orin.
Symbol: Islands
The Islands are a potent symbol. An island is separate from the mainland, isolated and thus generally "purer" and free from the deleterious effects of mainland civilization. The Blessed Isles in this novel are described as a warm, beautiful, dreamy paradise. They are more than that for the characters, though -they are a symbol of the womb, of a refuge, of a prelapsarian Eden, and of freedom.
Symbol: Hair
Christine, Lavinia, and Marie Brantome's hair, as it is in many poems and works of literature (see Baudelaire's poetry) symbolizes their femininity and sexual openness. The intriguing copper hue and the loose, lustrous flow entice and indicate all of the men in this play; Lavinia's choice to wear hers back at the beginning of the play suggests she is sexually frigid, but after she returns from the Islands she lets it down as a symbol of her newfound sexual openness.
Symbol/Motif: The Chanty
O'Neill chooses to portray Seth often singing "Shenandoah." As critic Jesse Weiner notes, "The shanty [Shenandoah] itself works as a symbol of death and contributes to the drama's motif of fate, since it is recited prior to Ezra's return and murder, immediately preceding the murder of Brant, again as Christine commits suicide, and finally just before the symbolic entombment of Lavinia."
