Letty Mason

Letty Mason is the main protagonist of the 1928 silent film The Wind. She's a fragile, sheltered, young Southern who traveled from Virginia to the frontier West, where she'd suffer through various misfortunes and eventually be driven more and more mad after being exposed to the ruthless, and strong sandstorm.
She was portrayed by Lillian Gish in her final silent film role.
== Biography ==
Letty's first seen riding a train from her homeland Vriginia, with Wirt Roddy introducing himself and aiding her to help her close the opening from the dirt and dust coming in. Bothered, Letty naively complained about nature's wind and wished it would stop blowing. The train continued on into the night, taking Letty westward from Virginia to her cousin's Sweet Water ranch in Texas. More sand battered the window to Letty's left, forcing her to direct her attention to Roddy, as he predicted that her future rested in the 'land of the winds' - a place that would likely cause her to go mad. He prophesied a dark future for her, though Letty tried to appear unfazed and hide her apprehension about his warning that women were driven mad by the constant winds in the area.
The train arrived at the station and Roddy helped Letty disembark by carrying her luggage. Obscured in the swirling dust and blowing wind, the two emerged onto the platform, where they barely noticed Lige Hightower and Sourduogh claiming to have been sent by Letty's cousin Beverly to pick her up, but were actually two neighbors. A bit apprehensive by the appearance of the two scruffy men, Letty fled back into Roddy's arms for reassurance, and the urbane cattle rancher promised to check on her. She forlornly waved goodbye to Roddy as the train pulled away, and Lige remarked he had "seen that galoot before". On the long ride to Sweet Water, dawn arrived as they rode along. A group of wild horses galloped by, sending up more plumes of dust, as Lige informed Letty about how they had been spooked. She asked about the winds, and he confirmed that the most destructive winds were yet to come - forces that panicked the mustangs and could rip appendages off one's body.
They finally arrive at the Sweet Water, where Letty's cousin Beverly happily greets her and carried her over the threshold as if she was his bride and warmly kissed her. He called for his wife Cora, to welcome his cousin, but she was less than thrilled to greet Letty, as she was tending to the three young children. Letty brushed the sand from her hair, as Beverly continued to fawn over her, but explained how his respiratory health was poor. Letty caused additional consternation when she asserted to Cora that she and Beverly were like brother and sister, because they were both raised by Letty's mother. Cora announced that dinner was ready and Lige and Sourdough were invited to the table and Letty sat between Lige and her cousin Bev. The two rough-hewn, unrefined men continued to compete for Letty's attention during the meal, but Letty was more distracted by the constantly-blowing wind seen outside through one of the windows. Cora described the ingredients casuing Letty to promptly lose her appetite. Letty volunteered to iron the laundry. as a way to help out around the ranch, though she'd get blisters. Cora in contrast couldn't be bothered as she was slicing open and gutting the innards of a dead steer hanging in the living room from the ceiling. However, the spiteful wife was annoyed and hurt that her own children happily and preferably flocked to Letty and gathered around her with their stereoscope, and ignored and rejected their own mother. She wielded her long sharp knife in Letty's direction - a symbol of her intense and jealous anger toward the dainty newcomer.
At the town's dance, while Cora was attending to the young infants and other younger town children, Lige and Sourdough vied for Letty's attention when she spotted Roddy. He was dusting off his clothes and boots with a handkerchief. She slipped away and they became reacquainted. He swept her onto the dance floor. Meanwhile, Sourdough and Lige bragged to Cora about their intentions to propose to Letty, and are forced to do it together after a contest. At the same time, Roddy began to woo Letty. He confided that he had come to see her specifically. Suddenly a cyclone turns up. Some of the dance attendees raced outside and pointed at the tornado-twister approaching in the distance, and many began to panic. Roddy and Letty took shelter by entering a trap door into the cellar with most of the town's members, Cora, and the kids joining them, while Lige and Sourdough remained on the main floor to brace the doors and windows. The wind started to rip apart the outer areas of the building, and sand began to blow into the building as the cyclone struck, but then the danger soon passed on. When the cyclone passes, Roddy proposed to Letty, who was pressed up closely next to him in the cellar. He attempted to lure her away with him. The party resumes and as Roddy prepares to leave, he advises Letty to ponder his proposal for the next 24 hours. Cora enthusiastically informed her husband that Letty might receive marriage proposals - she was fully supportive of the idea. Lige and Sourdough announced their intentions, but Letty couldn't take them seriously and laughed at both of them.
When Cora realized both of their proposals had been rejected, she got worried that Letty wouldn't leave her home anytime soon, and turned hostile. During a vicious stand-off in order to jealously protect her marriage with Beverly, Cora adamantly urged Letty, who at first joked about the failed proposals, to reconsider and take one of her marriage suitors seriously. She delivered an ultimatum - Letty was a threat to their home at Sweet Water because of her perceived love for her cousin, and must leave immediately. Wincing over Beverly's health, Letty realized that she had to make a quick decision about her future - and was reminded that the cruel world outside was threatening to engulf her. Fearing what might happen to her if she was tossed out of the Sweet Water ranch into the wide-open landscape, she promised Cora she knew where to go. She wanted to marry Roddy, but found out he was already married and as a result had to tell Cora the plan failed, leaving her to marry Lige or Sourdough.
Lige became Letty's new husband, and Letty was congradulated for the marriage.
Left alone for a brief time, Letty was nervous and paralyzed with fear, while Lige was giddy with anticipation and excitement. Although Lige meant well and genuinely wanted to please Letty and make her happy, it was clear that Letty didn't actually love him. To ingratiate himself to her, he repeated or imitated Roddy's familiar sweeping motions of wiping sand away from his sleeve and from her dress. He was anxious to kiss her, but his kiss was unreciprocated and he couldn't understand why she remained cold, distant, aloof, and repulsed. They had an awkward, dysfunctional and uncomfortable wedding night between them. Determined to make their marriage work, Lige decided to confront Letty directly. As he approached closer, her feet also stepped backward as Lige demandingly and forcefully grabbed Letty for a violent kiss. She broke away, wiped her mouth in hateful disgust, and sneered at him that she hated him, making Lige finally realize Letty didn't love him. He promised to never touch her again or make advances toward her, and that he'd try to gain some money to send her away from him forever, possibly back to Virginia.
From that point on, they would live together during a marital truce, separated from each other emotionally, spiritually, and physically. The next morning, Letty glanced out the front window at a group of other ranchers gathered on horseback. Lige had been invited to join the ranchers. Lige briefly returned into the cabin - allowing a blast of dust to enter - to get his jacket before riding off with the cattlemen. She begged to not be left alone - terrified and fearing what Roddy had earlier warned her about. He agreed to take her along. In the fierce winds that were blowing, her cloak fluttered around, she couldn't control her horse (it ran off in the opposite direction), and she straggled behind the rest of the group. Lige pursued her runaway horse, and then transferred her to the back of his horse. But then another catastrophe happened - she fell off Lige's horse when the horse bucked her. There was no other alternative but to have Sourdough take her back home. Lige suggested a way for the cattlemen to raise money - he convinced his fellow ranchers to brave a norther' and round up mustangs to sell to the U.S. government.
After returning with Letty to the ranch, he restated his belief that the norther' winds were coming - and tied the winds' arrival to the ghostly image of the devilish white stallion. Letty's fears briefly resurfaced. Suddenly, as Letty appeared dazed and dizzy, another rancher-cattleman entered, with news that an injured man was being brought to the house. Sourdough was aggravated by the blowing wind. Outdoors, the wounded man was wrapped in a blanket, and Letty became momentarily fearful that it was Lige when the unidentified male was carried in and laid on a bed. She knelt by the bed-side, fearing the worst (and truly caring about her husband), but when she uncovered the body, she was horrified to discover it was Roddy. When Lige arrived a few seconds later, Sourdough expressed his disgust at him. Lige borrowed Sourdough's glass flask of whiskey and gave Roddy a few sips to revive him. Roddy opened his eyes and smiled at Letty, then turned his gaze to the left toward Lige, who described his rescue. Exhausted and in pain, Roddy covered his face with his right hand, as Letty was hoping he wouldn't have to stay.
As Letty looked down at Roddy, she imagined that Roddy revived and turned toward her with a sadistic, leering smile. She was horrified by the lascivious look that he gave her (in her fantasy). she reacted with stunned silence, Then, Letty stood before a flowering hedge, wearing a spring dress and a wide-brimmed summery hat. She was nearby in the kitchen, washing dishes in a tub full of sand. Roddy watched her, and then asked if she remembered his warning given to her on the train about the effect the winds had - mostly on women. But then she revealed her underlying neurotic anxieties when she glanced out the window at the impending and threatening norther' (a catastrophic hybrid of wind and blowing sand), and how she was trapped with him inside the house. She approached closer to the window, peered upwards at the sky filled with dark clouds, and then turned toward Roddy as he grasped her hand. He menacingly loomed over her, until she lit the table's lantern. He advanced on her again and grabbed her wrists, as she looked for a way to escape from his imprisoning embrace. Since the wind seemed to be driving her mad, he played on her fears of insanity. He begged her to leave with him, and implied that he would safely take her home to Virginia. She was saved from his unwanted attention by the arrival of Lige and Sourdough on horseback. When Lige entered the front door, the frightened Letty was so relieved by his presence that she threw her arms around him.
Lige announced that the weather was changing and that the norther' was expected soon. He emphatically stated that he needed every man available to take part in the wild horse round-up - even Roddy now that he had recovered. As both Lige and Roddy headed out, Letty stopped Lige and pleaded with him to stay, but he declined her urgent request But then he risked her rejection (and the violation of his vow to never advance on her again) by kissing her - and she readily accepted his act of affection. She ran after him through the front door directly into a violent blast of sandy dust as he rode off with two others. She yelled his name and called out for him, but her voice was drowned out by the wind. She stumbled back inside the empty house, as the wind and dust continued to assault the wooden structure. Out on the prairie, the cattlemen assembled and then charged toward the hundreds of mustangs fleeing the norther' winds, to round them up. The group disappeared in the distance, but the back of the group, Roddy paused and then turned back - to ride in the opposite direction and sneak back to the house to torment Letty.
Inside the house, Letty was crouched into a fetal position on her bed. A moving pattern of stripes was reflected onto her and the wall, and her internal, tenuous hold on reality was beginning to crack. The dark sand clouds of dirt and wind on the exterior seemed to mercilessly consume the vulnerable house. Letty's eyes reflected the terror she felt coming from the uncontrollable forces of nature, threatening to shake the house into oblivion. She had a savage, half-crazed look as the wind began to drive her absolutely insane. The herd of cattle in the corral near the house escaped through a broken fence and surged away. An opening in the side wall of the house also burst open, and sand swirled into the house, threatening to overturn everything, until Letty plugged up the hole with a blanket. Another gaping hole appeared in a broken window pane, and the funneled wind into the home overturned the lit table lamp. A fire soon threatened the interior of the house, and she became frozen and paralyzed while the wind whipped the fire into a conflagration. However, she was finally able to find her strength and resolve and extinguish the flames by covering them with a blanket, and she also plugged up the hole in the window. The overhead lamp kept swinging - it soon disoriented her with its dizzying, mesmerizing effect, and the whole room began to sway.
Then, a disembodied fist knocked on the front door , which responded to by covering her ears, hoping that the sound would go away. But then she ran to the door, opened it, and was thrust backward by the strong blast of wind. The visitor entered, and embraced the semi-conscious Letty on the floor. While held in his arms, she removed his hat - and to her horror realized it was Roddy. She struggled against his powerful arms, but could not escape his grasp. At the same time, the wind blew open the front door, and she tried to flee into the outer darkness. She ran about in the yard and fenced corral area, entirely blinded, when she experienced another subjective, frenzied vision of the ghost horse about to trample over her. She eventually felt her way around the perimeter of the house back to the open front door, where she was literally blown backwards into Roddy's arms - he had been awaiting her return. When she fainted in his arms, realizing that she was being assaulted by forces from all sides, he picked her up and carried her into the bedroom. He placed her on the bed, and then returned to close and secure the front door with a wooden bar, sexually harassing Letty.
The next morning was a much calmer day. Letty sat next to the kitchen table and noticed Roddy's weapon as he entered the room, removed the front door's bar, and forced open the door. A large pile of sand that had accumulated at the front door spilled into the room. When he attempted to close the door, the sand prevented him from doing so. For the time being, he propped a small spade against the partially-closed door, and then insisted that Letty prepare to leave with him, which she absolutely refuses, leading to Roddy becoming more aggressive by grabbing her arm. She walked away, but he again forcibly grabbed her and reiterated that he feared that Lige would want to kill both of them if they remained there - for her infidelity and for his ruthless treatment of her. Letty's tossed into the table but manages to grab Robby's revolver. When she pointed the gun waist-high at him to defend herself, he confidently dared her to pull the trigger and fire. He walked over to her, bringing his body nearer to the gun barrel that was pointed directly at him. When he smiled and then grabbed the gun, she unexpectedly fired it and he was dumb-founded that she would pull the trigger at him. He stood staring at her for a few moments before dropping dead.
Category:Live Action Heroes
Category:Movie Heroes
Category:Mute
Category:Female
Category:Tragic
Category:In Love
Category:Neutral Good
Category:Insecure
Category:Victims
Category:Paranoid
Category:Jerks
Category:Spouses