CHARACTER SKETCH OF PROF. HENRY CORRIE

Introduction:

                   St. John G. Ervine presents the sensational drama “PROGRESS” in, which the story rotates around the characters of Professor Henry Corrie and his only sister Mrs. Meldon. Prof. Henry Corrie is about sixty years of age. He live in a remote village of North England. He is happy in isolation because he can concentrate on his secret research work.

Appearance:

                   Corrie has cold humourless eyes. There are cruel lines on his face but they are hidden behind the thickish beard. He is very dangerous but apparently he does not seem to be so. He is a symbol of tyranny, destruction, selfishness and materialism.

Intelligence:

                   Corrie is D.Sc. and a highly educated and qualified scientist of England. He is completely absorbed in his research work. After a life long struggle, he has been successful in discovering a terrible formula of a devastating bomb. It will devastate a district. It will release a powerful, spreading poisonous gas, without color or smell. Those who will inhale it, their bodies will rot and rust and nothing will save them. Happily he says:

“Ah! At last by heaven

I have done it, at last.”

Materialism And Unpatriotic:

                   Corrie is the complete representative of today’s materialistic world. Although his bomb will kill thousands within no time, and will wipe out big cities like Manchester yet he feels proud on his invention and says:

“This will bring fame and fortune

to me. I shall be rich now, but

more than that I shall be famous.”

                   He is mad after wealth. Greed and list of wealth has turned him not only materialistic and selfish but also unpatriotic.

“If they won’t pay my price,

I’ll offer it to somebody else.”

                   This is the height of treachery. The great scientist fails to visualize that if the enemy uses that bomb, his own country – men would be eliminated.

Unsocial and uncourteous:

                   Corrie is not a social man. He is so lost in his work that he has lost all interest for the human beings. Although he makes a promise to go to the station to receive his only sister yet he does not go. It is the third death anniversary of Eddie, Mrs. Meldon’s only son. She is sad, instead of sympathinzing with her, he proudly, talks about his sinister bomb. He is cruel and selfish. He forces her to rejoice at the dreadful invention. He asks her:

“But look at the matter form a

board point of view. Put your

own feelings aside!”

Hatred for women:

                   Corrie lacks aesthetic sense. He is a misogamist. He is disinterested with the finer values of life. That is why he has not married as yet. He hates women and his sister is no exception to his hatred. He says:

“Oh how women do fuss! No

application. No concentration.

That’s why no women have

Ever been great artist or

scientist.”

Proud and Callous:

                   Corrie is a wolf in a sheep’s clothing. He is doing nothing to reduce poverty or hunger. Rather he has been busy in inventing a dangerous bomb for this own selfish motives. In his own words:

“With a single bomb we could

wipe out the population of a city

as big as Manchester. Single bomb,

Charlotte!”

Conclusion:

                   Mrs. Meldon asks him time and again to suppress his evil invention. But he pays no head to it. Rather he becomes angry and calls her morbid, fool of a women.

                   He makes fun of her ideas, laugh harshly and finally says:

“Well, I shan’t. Give up

my invention for a lot of

demned sentiment! Not

likely!”

                   In her desperate step to save the world from destruction, she stabs him to death. In fact he was the symbol of vice, destruction and enemy of mankind.

He suffered in a deserving way