all telling tales quotes

3x Quotes about the execution story /memories

• furze pods ‘burst in all directions…like the buttons when he started to tear at his tunic’

• tore at his tunic over the heart, as if to pluck out the bullets

• as if to tear a spider web away

6/7 xQuotes about fishing/the river

• the river was dead silent

• pike choked on hooked perch they’d tried to swallow

• sit in aluminium deck chairs on the riverbank and fish with rods

• i was discarding his life to assume my own

• warm fleshy smell of worms crawling in too little clay

• unless the night wind…he said anxiously/unless a night wind

5-7x Quotes that show the father + son’s fractured/strained/difficult relationship

• the river was dead silent

• pike choked on hooked perch they’d tried to swallow

• i was wary of the big words. they were not his own voice

• as if to tear a spider web away

• i knew this silence was fixed forever…till he asked

• unless the night wind…he said anxiously/unless a night wind

• each move he made i watched closely as if i too had to prepare myself to murder

quotes about the deception/betrayal/epiphany/growing up

• i was wary of the big words. they were not his own voice

• warm fleshy smell of worms crawling in too little clay

• he’d get ten thousand if i was killed

• i knew my youth had ended

• it’ll be your own funeral/it’ll be my own funeral

structure points

• inevitability (starts and ends with them fishing + motifs of murder/execution)

• tragic impossibility of connection

Key themes

• misunderstandings/impossibility of human connection

• difficult family relationships

• difficulties of growing up

• responses to conflict

• epiphany/learning about yourself and others

author

John Mcgahern

context

• poverty widespread in ireland

• korean war -america vs north korea 1950-53, irish men fought for america. 3 million fatalities . confrontation of the cold war (manifestations of underlying ongoing conflict, like the father-son relationship), plus lack of decisive end -similar to the story

• irish war of independence (1922-23)- many nationalists imprisoned an executed by firing squad

perspective

1st person (at a later date, with hindsight), emotional insight

7x Quotes to show strained relationship with parents

• special significance for me ever since my mother died through eating one

• hardly a skill im proud of…kikuko come and help

• i dont suppose you believe in war

• for some moments she did not move

• somewhat strained

• his face looked almost gentle

• and some disappointments

7x quotes about the father -cold, detached, traditional

• proud of the pure samurai blood

• a man of principle and honour

• i dont suppose you believe in war

• dealing with foreigners

• hardly a skill im proud of…kikuko come and help

• and some disappointments

• just fish

4/5x quotes about the father- fundamentally lonely

• looked almost gentle

• you;d be very welcome. that is, if you don;t mind living with an old man

• you’ll no doubt return to america before long…no doubt you will

• perhaps she will want to come home then /things will improve then

significance of title

• ironic

• juxtaposition

6x quotes to show cultural differences

• proud of the pure samurai blood

• principle and honour

• hardly a skill im proud of

• dont suppose you believe in war

• dealing with foreigners

• and some disappointments

key themes

• difficulty fitting in

• difficult family relationships

• parental relationships

• misunderstandings

• culture /cultural clashes

• impact of conflict

• appearance vs reality

Context

• fugu = lethal poison

• japanese society -conservative, focus on gender roles -women meant to obey fathers/husbands

• suicide -honourable, samuai warriors expected to commit suicide

• ubasute -sick or elderly relatives left in a remote place to die -old people who felt disgraceful to their families meant to kill themselves rather than be a burden

• seppuku - killing yourself by cutting up your stomach (ingesting poison -similar ) -seen as honourable

Quotes to show harmonious family at the start

• an invisible cord

• he would crouch on his haunches

2x Quotes to show that their relationships are changing

• they watched the boat, on its first trip across the pong to Grandfather, suddently become deeper, and deeper in the water. the motor cut. the launch wallowed, sank.

• anything can change

3x Quotes about ralph/his impact

• just to see his face go crestfallen and blank

• suddenly barked

• she looked trapped and helpless

2x Quotes about the father

• his hair and clothes were wet, his lips were caked with salt; seaweed hung from his shoulders

• the boat sank - like my plane

Quotes about the grandfather

• he would crouch on his haunches

• anything can change

• he smiled. not for drinking

• tackling

• about how mother banished Grandfather, about how suicide can be murder and how things don’t end

7x Quotes about the mother

• she looked trapped and helpless

• darling. please, i’ll explain. darling, darling

• but she never did explain

• she wore, beneath everything, this look of relief, as if she had recovered from an illness

• what am I going to do

• about how mother banished Grandfather, about how suicide can be murder and how things don’t end

• Mother didn’t cry. she hadn’t cried at all

7× quotes about the narrator

• the boat sank - like my plane

• she looked trapped and helpless

• she never did explain

• she wore beneath everything a look of relied

• mother + grandfather (proper nouns)

• i was barely ten

• as if the house was plunging underwater

• about how mother banished Grandfather, about how suicide can be murder and how things don’t end

4x Quotes about the launch

• an invisible cord

• he would crouch on his haunches

• watched the boat, on its first trip across the pond to grandfather, suddenly become deeper, and deeper in the water. the motor cut. the launch wallowed, sank

• the launch was still travelling over to him, unstoppable, unsinkable, along that invisible line

Author

graham swift

Main themes

• loss (of loved ones and of stability)

• betrayal

• love

• cross-generational connection

• difficult family relationships

• change, responses to change

• difficulties of growing up

Context

• chemistry = science of change (dissected in the story, analysed)

• bonds can be made and broken but nothing is lost

• prussic acid = made of laurel leaves, lethal

structural significance?

cyclic structure

inevitability (of loss/change or of ultimately fixed broken connections)

quotes about language/polish culture 9x

• i think im going to understand it, and then i don’t

• sang and sang until it died

• lost the words you gave me

• i felt my lips move. there were words in my mouth

• it was a flag from another country, a better country than the ones either of us lived in

• it’s the accent

• terribly hopeful tie

• steve/stefan

• you’ll get her all mixed up…what use is polish ever going to be to her?

quotes about isolation/heirarchy in the community at school 3x

• knot of teachers

• i wear a uniform

• lifted the counter flap, tucke dmy hair under the cap

quotes about carla learning about herself 4x

• i felt my lips move. there were words in my mouth

• a flag from another country, a better country than the ones either of us lived in

• i like your tie

• lifted the counter flap, tucked my hair under the cap

quotes about stefan 6x

• steve/stefan

• sang and sang until it died

• lost the words you gave me

• flag from another country, a better country

• terribly hopeful tie

• the way a child does when he doesn’t know anyone at a party, hoping for a rescue

key themes

• learning about yourself/others

• finding identity/culture

• importance of human connection

• difficulty fitting in

author

helen dunmore

context

increasing polish migration since 1950s (1947 polish resettlement act; 1992 free movement across EU borders)

xenophobia prevelant in UK society 2000s

schools = hierarchical insitutes (she wears a uniform, like a student- degrading)

Quotes to show detachment in england/homesickness 5x

• wanting to be elsewhere/in fact Jamaica

• in this England

• is it always so cold? does it ever get warm? does the sun shine here?

• what do you answer when strangers call to you, but they are not strangers really, they are your mother and father?

• these newly acquired people

quotes to show detached family relationships 2x

• these newly acquired people

• when do you answer when strangers call to you, but they are not strangers really, they are your mother and father?

quotes to show racist oppression/discrimination 5x

• columbus keeps coming back to haunt me

• hidden, disposed of, dispatched to the invisibility of the back row

• impressed 3x then ‘my impressive reading enrolled me in one five, the hottest, baddest stream in the first year

• stragetic location

• all a dem collude to humiliate, not just me, but all a we

quotes to show repressive atmosphere of the school

• recite

• columbus keeps coming back to haunt me

• the inspector’s eyes pierce me through

• trapped words

• hidden, disposed of, dispatched to the invisibility of the back row

• stragetic location

quotes to show celebration of identity

• toussaint l’ouverture, sojourner truth, nanny, cudjoe, paul bogle

• voices are raised, claiming, proclaiming, learning the new language in dis here England

• wanting an explosion

strcutural points

• poetry in middle -detachment /disconnection by enjambment . also fragmented memories

• cyclic structure -inevitability of cultural celebration/finding your identity, but also the constant repression

key themes

• cultural identity + disconnection

• cross generational difficulty

• difficulty growing up

• importance of place

• learning about yourself -epiphany

context

• Jamaica -part of British empire until 1962 -taught the English curriculum

• history taught as though COlumbus discovered jamaica, instead of mentioning the persecution + rebellions against slavery etc

• windrush generation -came to Britain after ww2 (1948 british nationality act) to fill lower paid, hard labour jobs . encountered racism . sent for their children when they could afford to

Quotes that present mrs rutter as harmless

• dear old thing

• really nice

• really sweet

• composed of circles, a cottage loaf of a woman

quotes that show mrs rutter is not harmless/more than meets the eye/unnerving

• her eyes investigated

• examined

• darted

• licked her lips (when telling the story)

• tit for tat

• youve got a lovely shape, sandra. you take care you stay that way

quotes that show sandra’s naivety/innocence/youth

• some people you only have to look at to know theyre not up to much

• bare brown legs

• not after tea-time anyway

• she would fall in love and she would get a good job and she would have one of those new singers and make an embroidered silk coat

Quotes that show sandra’s epiphany/growing up

• he had grown

• there were not, the girl realised, wolves or witches or tigers

• you could get people all wrong, she realised with alarm

• glimpsed darkness, an inescapable darkness…you would never be without it, ever

quotes about kerry

• not susie. not liz either. kerry stevens from richmond way

• some people you only have to look at to know they’re not up to much

• shoved his chair back from the table

• i wont ever forget him

• someone like that

• he had grown

• his anger eclipsed his acne

main themes

• darkness/light (good/evil)

• past, present, ftuure

• appearance vs reality

• epiphany/growing up

• misunderstandings

• impact of conflict

• learning about themselves/others

context

• rule of war -captured and injured enemy combatants are not killed but imprisoned and given medical treatment

• many german places shot down and crashed in bad weather

Quotes to show elizabeth’s anger at walter

• it was chrysathemums when I married him, and chrysanthemums when you were born, and the first time they ever brought him home drunk he’d got brown chrysanthemums in the button hole

• slink past his very door

Quotes about motherhood

• clear as a twelve month baby

• he had a hearty laugh. i loved to hear it. he had the heartiest laugh

• you’ve got to make allowances for them

• the children hid their faces in her skirts, for comfort

Quotes about elizabeth and walter’s lack of connection

• it was chrysanthemums when i married him, and chrysanthemums when you were born, and the first time they ever brought him home drunk he;d got brown chrysanthemums in the button hole

• the dead man

• so infinite a gap she must look across

• and she knew what a stranger he was to her

• she had denied him what he was-she saw it now. she had refused him as himself.

• she had never seen him, he had never seen her, they had met in the dark and had fought in the dark

quotes about chrysanthemums

• it was chrysanthemums when i married him, and chrystanthemums when you were born, and the first time they ever broguht him home drunk he;d got brown chrysanthemums in the button hole

• deathly smell of chrysanthemums

• still rapturously

What do chrysanthemums represent

both death/unpleasantness and also life-affirming moments/joy/love - so show ultimately the duality of life and death and how death can lead to enlightenment (tragically) as it does here

quotes that show elizabeth was nervous when she didn’t know where walter was

• her heart swung violently

• surged on again, almost suffocating her

Main themes

• impossibility of human connection/misunderstandings/loneliness

• different kinds of love

• loss

• change

• responses to loss/change/difficult situations

• epiphany, learning about yourself/others

author

DH lawrence

context

• mining =dangerous , unmechanised at the time

• lawrence’s mother regretted her marriage to a coal miner who spent too much time drinking at the pub

• grew up in a mining town

• lawrence’s uncle died in a mining accident when his wife was pregnant , elder brother also died + laid out in a coffin at their home

• woman’s job to prepare a body for burial