Character Professor Henry Corrie

CHARACTER

Professor Henry Corrie

Introduction:

St John G .Ervine presents the sensational drama "PROGRESS" in which the story rotates around the character of Professor Henry Corrie and his sister Mrs.Meldon. Professor Henry Corrie is about sixty years of age. He lives in the remote village in the north of England. He is happy in isolation because he can concentrate in his secret research work.

Appearance:

Prof. Henry Corrie has cold, humorless eyes, and his mouth, if it were not concealed by a thick beard would be seen to have cruel lines about it. He is a very dangerous person but apparently, he does not seem to be so. He is a symbol of tyranny, destruction, selfishness and materialism.

An Intelligent Scientist:

Prof. Henry Corrie is a highly educated scientist of England. He is completely observed in his secret research work. After a long life struggle, he has been successful in discovering a terrible formula of devastating bomb. It will release a powerful spreading poisonous gas, without color or smell. Those who will inhale it, their bodies will rot and rust and then nobody and nothing will save them. Happily, he says:

Ah! at last, at last! By Heaven, I have done it at last.

Materialistic and Unpatriotic:

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

This will bring fame and fortunate to me. I shall rich now, but more then that I shall be famous.

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

If they will not pay my price, I will offer it to somebody else.

This is the height of treachery. The great scientist fells to visualize that if the enemy uses that bomb against his own compatriots would be eliminated.

Unsocial and Uncourageous:

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

However, look at that matter from a broad point of view Charlotte and please put your own feelings aside.

Hatred for Women:

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

Oh, how women do fuss! No application. No concentration. No capacity for complete and impersonal devotion. That is why no women have ever been great artists or scientists.

Proud and Callous:

Prof. Henry Corrie is a wolf in sheep's clothing. Prof. Henry Corrie is doing nothing to reduce poverty or hunger. Rather he has been busy in inventing a dangerous bomb for his 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 again to suppress his evil invention. However, he pays no head to it. Rather he become angry and calls her morbid, fool of a women. He makes fun of her ideas, laughs harshly and finally says:

Well, I shall not give up my invention for a lot of damned sentiment! Not likely!

In her desperate step to save the world from destruction, she stabs him to death. In fact, he is the symbol of vice, destruction and enemy of humankind. He suffers in a deserving way.