71 pages • 2 hours read
Joseph KesselringArsenic and Old Lace
Fiction | Play | Adult | Published in 1941A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Character Analysis
Mortimer Brewster
Mortimer Brewster is the protagonist of Arsenic and Old Lace. He is a somewhat begrudging drama critic and Abby and Martha’s nephew. Mortimer’s plans to marry Elaine Harper are jeopardized when he learns that his seemingly benevolent aunts are actually murderers. This prompts Mortimer to reject Elaine for her own safety and question everything he thought he knew about his beloved aunts as he attempts to resolve his family’s crimes. Mortimer often plays the comedic foil to other characters, meaning that his more grounded, realistic reactions to the play’s events highlight the zany behavior of the Brewsters. Mortimer’s name also functions as a joke in the play, as “Mort-” derives from the Latin for “death”, suggesting the very connection to lethal violence that Mortimer fears is his inevitable birthright.
Most of Mortimer’s struggles pertain to his identity. Though his anxieties are underscored by comedy, they motivate many of Mortimer’s choices throughout the play. Mortimer’s judgment is impacted by his complex relationship with his family. He fears that being a Brewster means eventually succumbing to insanity. He sees this replicated in generations of his family, beginning with his murderous colonial ancestor and ending with his brothers, Teddy and Jonathan. Mortimer worries that he will be the next to be influenced by the “strange tint in the Brewster blood” (55). This translates to his relationship with Elaine. He worries that his family's hereditary peculiarities will be passed on to their future children. This fear is further solidified after Jonathan attacks Elaine, a turning point that causes Mortimer to conclude that his family’s nature will prevent him from lifelong happiness.
Despite his fears about his family genetics, Mortimer is fiercely protective of Abby and Martha, and he is still inclined to keep them safe after learning their secret. After the sisters try to force Jonathan to remove Mr. Spenalzo, he implores them to let Teddy take the blame for the victims. Mortimer pleads, “If I can make Teddy responsible for those I can protect you, don’t you see?” (70). Mortimer struggles to reconcile his positive relationship with Abby and Martha with his new discoveries about their true nature. However, he is still ultimately relieved to learn that he is not related to them by blood. When Abby and Martha confess his true parentage, he takes the revelation as a sign that he can marry Elaine and start a new life away from the Brewster bloodline. Abby and Martha offer them their house, but Mortimer refuses, saying that “this house is too full of memories” (90). It is implied that Mortimer’s next chapter will be starting his own family and filling a new house with more positive endings.
Abby and Martha Brewster
Kesselring writes Abby and Martha as a unit–one is never present without the other, and they commit crimes as a team. As such, they are characterized as almost identical. Abby and Martha are portrayed as pillars of their community. At the onset of the play, they are sending off a delivery of toys for a children’s charity. This makes the reveal of their murderous tendencies particularly jarring—and hilarious—because it conflicts with what the audience initially assumes about them.
Even though Abby and Martha are serial killers, their crimes are humorously in line with their benevolent facade. They only target men who are lonely and otherwise disadvantaged, and they take great care in preparing their victims’ final meal. They have genuine connections with their victims, and insist on giving all of them funeral services. When Jonathan tries to bury his victim, Mr. Spenalzo, Abby and Martha say they will not give funeral rites to a stranger, implying that they consider their victims as friends. They also treat their family with care and kindness. This is best exemplified by their treatment of Teddy, who has lived with them through adulthood due to his mental condition. Though Teddy believes he is President Theodore Roosevelt, and is occasionally a nuisance to the neighbors, the sisters insist on caring for him until they no longer can. When he is to be committed, they insist on joining him in the sanitarium, saying “If he goes, we’re going too” (87). Since Kesselring establishes their positive intentions from the onset of the play, Abby and Martha are more sympathetic to the audience. This is a stark contrast to their nephew Jonathan, who is also a criminal but is immediately established as threatening and nefarious.
The characterization of the Brewster sisters solidifies the comedic core of the play. Kesselring subverts the docility normally associated with elderly female characters by using it as the defining motivation for the murderous pair. They are able to rationalize killing as a benevolent action, and this encourages other characters in the play to remain absurdly oblivious to Abby and Martha’s actions. This joke is heightened to extreme levels at the end of the play, when Abby and Martha outright confess to hiding bodies in their basement and are waved off by the police. Abby even attempts to lead Officer Rooney to the burial site, telling him that “The graves are all marked. We put flowers on them every Sunday” (87). Despite this, Rooney’s first inclination is to agree that they should join Teddy at Happy Dale. Abby and Martha’s kind and matter-of-fact approach to crime make them odd yet engaging criminals.
Jonathan Brewster
Jonathan Brewster is Mortimer’s brother. At the beginning of the play, Mortimer says that “he wanted to be a surgeon like Grandfather but wouldn’t go to medical school, and his practice got him in trouble” (19). He is a calculated and murderous criminal, and tries to take residence at the Brewster family home in order to hide from the police and stash the body of his latest victim, Mr. Spenalzo. He is on the run with his henchman, plastic surgeon Dr. Einstein. Einstein constantly changes Jonathan’s features so that he can avoid capture, but his current face bears an uncanny resemblance to actor Boris Karloff. Comparisons to Karloff regularly incite Jonathan to violence. Karloff himself originated the role of Jonathan in the Broadway production, making this running gag a meta-theatrical joke that played on the expectations of contemporary audiences.
Though Jonathan initially tries to stay with Abby and Martha for selfish reasons, he spends a sizable portion of his arc tormenting Mortimer. Upon returning to the house, he recalls his and Mortimer’s consistently contentious relationship, asking, “Mortimer, have you forgotten the things I used to do to you when we were boys? Remember the time you were tied to the bedpost – the needles under your fingernails –?” (52) Mortimer responds by telling Jonathan he remembers him as “the most detestable, vicious, venomous form of animal life I ever knew” (52).
While Jonathan poses an obvious physical threat to Mortimer, he also causes him great emotional turmoil. Jonathan represents Mortimer’s worst fears about his family. He is introduced at the end of Act I, which proves to be a crucial point in the story. Mortimer is already starting to believe that he cannot move forward with Elaine because of Abby and Martha’s murderous tendencies, and Jonathan’s violent actions seem to prove the pervasive nature of the Brewster proclivity for violence. Abby and Martha’s criminality is still somehow underscored by kindness, and Mortimer’s brother Teddy does little more than bother neighbors while acting out President Roosevelt’s battles. However, Jonathan kills people without remorse. By the end of the play, Johnathan is the only murderer who is caught and held accountable for his crimes.
Dr. Einstein
Dr. Einstein is a plastic surgeon who travels with Jonathan. His main job is to make Jonathan unrecognizable as he flees from the authorities. The two have been working together for about five years, and the play marks the first time the rest of the Brewsters meet him. Einstein is mainly characterized as being timid and subservient to Jonathan, agreeing to change his face or help hide his crimes on request. Jonathan wants Einstein to restore a previous version of his face, and Einstein plans to operate on him that night in the basement of the Brewster home.
Einstein is a flat character who mainly acts as comic relief. While he shares a name with famed physicist Albert Einstein, their similarities end there—an intentional joke by Kesselring. He is not very smart, rarely questions Jonathan, and is frequently drunk. Einstein’s mistakes placed Jonathan in the precarious situation of having a famous face, now resembling Boris Karloff. When explaining the situation to Abby and Martha, he says, “The last five years I give Chonny three new faces. I give him another right away. This last face–well, I saw that picture too–just before I operate. And I was intoxicated” (35). Einstein serves to play into the humorous contradictions rooted within the play. He defies expectations by frequently making silly mistakes and performing poorly at his job.
There are moments when Kesselring suggests that Einstein possesses a lingering kindness despite his years with Jonathan. After hearing that Jonathan plans to subject Mortimer to his painful and torturous “Melbourne method,” Einstein implores Mortimer to leave the house before it is too late (74). This brief moment of redemption provides some dramatic justification for Kesselring allowing Einstein to escape punishment at the end of the play.
Elaine Harper
Elaine Harper is the daughter of a local reverend and Mortimer’s love interest. He wants to marry her, but is worried about exposing her to his family’s antics and passing on their genetics to their potential children. After Jonathan attacks Elaine, Mortimer tries to call off the engagement. However, their future looks bright once Mortimer is able to rid himself of Jonathan and his aunts once and for all.
Though Elaine has a comparatively smaller role in the play, she anchors Mortimer’s emotional journey. Elaine represents what Mortimer’s life could be if he were free of the influence of his family. Where Mortimer’s family is unruly and occasionally violent, Elaine’s only mentioned family is the pious and dignified Reverend Harper. She is sweet, sensible, and devoted. In reaching for Elaine, Mortimer reaches for everything he cannot have in his current family situation. Despite his repeated attempts to shut her out, Elaine insists on staying with Mortimer and wants to solve the conflict with him. She attempts to reassure him by telling him that she just asks that he communicate his problem so that she can help him. This compassionate offer is portrayed humorously, as Mortimer cannot tell Elaine the true source of his anxiety without scandalizing her. Elaine often plays the “straight man” in her scenes, a stock character whose obliviousness to the absurdity of comedic situations allows other characters to make jokes for the benefit of the audience. When Abby and Martha finally tell Mortimer that he is not a legitimate Brewster, he is overjoyed, exclaiming “Elaine! Did you hear? Do you understand? I’m a bastard!” (91) This quote demonstrates that Elaine symbolizes Mortimer’s future away from his family and reveals the extent of his desire to separate from them.
