who embodies the human capacity for compassion?

Mrs. Antrobus is both the ideal suburban wife and the archetypal earth mother. She uncomplainingly endures nature's disasters, her husband's infidelities, and her children's disobedience, always facing each new crisis with energy and determination to survive. President of the Excelsior Mothers' club, "an excellent needlewoman" who "invented the apron," she "lives only for her children." Entirely defined by her domestic role, her motto is to "Save the Family," and in each Act of the play she manages to do just that.