Even as she
struggles to shake them off, the traditions of her race take firmer
hold on her; and in the highly dramatic last act (a not unskilful
adaptation to the stage of the crucial scene of the book) she bows
her neck beneath the yoke, and renounces love that the Law may be
fulfilled."
To state the matter in other terms, we are conscious of no tension in
the earlier acts of this play, because we have not been permitted to see
the sword of Damocles hanging over the heads of Hannah and David
Brandon. For lack of preparation, of pointing-forward, we feel none of
that god-like superiority to the people of the mimic world which we have
recognized as the characteristic privilege of the spectator. We know no
more than they do of the implications of their acts, and the network of
embarrassments in which they are involving themselves. Indeed, we know
less than they do: for Hannah, as a well brought-up Jewess, is no doubt
vaguely aware of the disabilities attaching to a divorced woman.
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