GCSE AQA English Lit Telling Tales

'Chemistry' Quotes

"Mother said: 'He's only ten, what can he know?' Though there were a thousand things I wanted to tell them"

"I thought I would throw the acid in Ralph's face at breakfast"

"For a year we lived quietly, calmly, even contentedly within the scope of this sad symmetry"

"She looked trapped and helpless"

"Ralph suddenly barked[...]'Why don't you leave her alone?!'"

Odour of Chrysanthemums quotes

"Elizabeth's thoughts were busy elsewhere[...] If he was hurt they wouldn't take him to the hospital- how tiresome he would be to nurse"

"In her womb was ice of fear, because of this separate stranger with whome she had been living as one flesh"

"The old woman[...] folded her hands, crying: "Oh, my boy, my boy!"

"Hush! said Elizabeth, with a sharp twitch of a frown""

"But he wasn't your son lizzie- [...] You've got to make allowances for them"

"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 him button-hole"

A family supper quotes

"A boyhood memory came back to me of the time he had struch me several times aroudn teh head for 'chattering like an old woman'"

"Excuse me for being burdened by such matters"

"Inevitably, our conversation since my arrival at the airport had been puncuated by long pauses"

"Obviously you don't see. You don't see how it is for some parents"

"'Yes, father was telling me that Watanabe was a man of principle.'

(Kikuko) 'Sick.'"

"Can't you recognise your own mother?"

'My Polish Teacher's Tie' Quotes

"Then he did something I still can't quite believe" (when steve sang the song)

"'I didn't realise you were Polish Mrs... er...' said the head. 'Nor did I'"

(the poem about her losing her roots) "Call the police, tell them there's a reward, I'll do anything"

"I spoke Polish till I was six, baby Polish ful of rhymes Mum taught me. Then my father put a stop to it."

Korea quotes

"I was wary of big words. They were not in his own voice."

"I knew this silence was fixed for ever as I rowed in silence"

"Each move he made I watched as closely as if I too had to prepare myself to murder"

"In the darkness of the lavatory [...] I know my youth had ended"

"As the eels came in over the side I cut them loose with a knife into a wire cage"

Invisible mass of the back row quotes

"Wanting to be elsewhere//in fact Jamaica"

"Today she will pay for being teacher's favourite, for being 'red' "

"Voices are raised, claiming, proclaiming, learning the new language in dis here England"

"What do you answer when strangers call to you by they are not strangers really, there are you mother and father?"

"I simply settle down to school life and cultivate the culture of the back row. We graduate in hair plaiting, make up and cussing"

The Darkness Out There quotes

"Some people you only have to look at to know they're not up to much"

"You could get people all wrong, she realised with alarm"

"I expect you're a nice strong boy, aren't you?"

"Mum said boys mature later, in many ways"

"You'll be courting before long yourself, I don't doubt"

Chemistry context

Written in 1982

Chemistry: the science of change, bonds can be created/broken but nothing is ever lost.

Prussic acid: lethal

A Family Supper context

Set in 1980s Japan

Japanese society: conservative, focused on gender roles. Women were meant to complete domestic tasks and obey their fathers and husbands

Suicide: seen as honourable; samurai warriors and kamikaze fighters were expected to commit suicide; old people did it who felt disgraceful to their families

Odour of Chrysanthemums context

Set in 1913

Mining was a very dangerous, brutal job

Story is autobiographical- Lawrence's mother regretted her marriage to drunken miner husband

My Polish Teacher's Tie context

Written in 2001

Polish predjudice: Eastern Europeans began to be known as a drain on the economy, job takers and a threat to social services, stemming from an influx of Polish immigration to the UK during WW2

Schools: hierarchical institutes

Korea context

Set in 1950s Ireland during Korean war (1950-53)

Poverty: widespread in 1950s Ireland

Korean war: America vs North Korea. Irish men fought for america

Irish war if Independance: 1922-23, caused bitter divisions- many nationalists were imprisoned and executed by the firing squad

Invisible Mass of the Back Row Context

Jamaica: part of British Empire until 1962; taught the English curriculum

History class: taught as if Columbus had discovered Jamaica, instead of mentioning those who rebelled against persecution and slavery

Windrush Generation: Came to Britain after WW2 to fill in lower paid, hard labour jobs. They encountered racism. Many sent of their children once they could afford to.

Darkness Out There context

Rule of war: captured and injured enemy combatants are not killed but imprisoned and given medical treatment.

WW2: many German planes were shot down and crashed in bad weather.