Short. Precise. Organised by focus.

Quotation bank

Organised around the coursework focuses, so you can work directly from your chosen question. The assignment is open book: what matters is not memorising but selecting, and copying quotations accurately, with page references from your own edition.

Memory and suppression

Quotation	Where	Method	Why it earns its place
‘I found a box of letters and photographs.’	End of Act One · Faith	Prop as plot	Memory stored as objects; the discovery that detonates the present.
‘…there is nothing from my memory of that time. It honestly is blank.’	Present · Evelyn	Irony	Disproved by the staging around her: the attic is the memory she denies.
‘You must forget it.’ / ‘Of course I can’t forget it.’ / ‘I certainly have.’	End of Act One	Stichomythia	The play’s central conflict in three lines.
‘Why are you so keen for me to destroy everything?’	Act Two · Lil	Question as challenge	Names the letter-tearing for what it is: forced forgetting.

Family: mothers and children

Quotation	Where	Method	Why it earns its place
‘You are my children… you are my jewels’	Act One · Helga	Metaphor made physical	Love as preservation; the hidden jewellery literalises it.
‘Through our children we live. That’s how we cheat death.’	Act Two · Helga	Aphorism; irony	Her creed, broken by the daughter who will not be hers.
‘I saved you.’	Present · Lil	Simple declarative	True, and incomplete: the play weighs what the saving cost.
‘Why should she hate you? She’s your daughter.’	Present · Lil	Dramatic irony	The question the whole play answers.
‘I’ve always thought it was my fault.’	Present · Faith	Confession	Trauma’s inheritance: the child blames herself for the unexplained.

Identity

Quotation	Where	Method	Why it earns its place
‘Ich muss es tragen. Ich hasse es.’	Act One · Eva	German dialogue; symbol	The label as imposed identity: worn, hated, unremovable.
‘Not the German, Eva.’ / ‘Ich bin Deutsche!’	Act One	Language conflict	Assimilation staged as a battle over the tongue.
‘I’m called Evelyn now.’	Act Two · the rejection	Naming	The whole transformation compressed into a name.
‘She just wanted to make a fresh start.’	Act One · of the birthday	Euphemism	Self-erasure explained away as optimism.

Conflict and the legacy of war

Quotation	Where	Method	Why it earns its place
‘I wish you had died.’ / ‘I wish you had lived.’	Act Two, Scene Two	Syntactic mirroring	One word of difference; the play’s tragedy in a couplet.
‘My suffering is monumental. Yours is personal.’	Act Two · Helga	Antithesis	Two scales of pain weighed before the audience.
‘They took everything. They took my family. They took six years.’	Act Two · Helga	Anaphora	Testimony by repetition: loss counted because it cannot be said whole.
‘Which smells more, German or Jew?’ / ‘Same difference, love.’	Act Two · Postman	Casual register	English prejudice in a friendly voice; safety was never simple.
‘I never wanted to live without you and you made me!’	Act Two, Scene Two · Evelyn	Paradox	Rescue experienced as abandonment: the wound said plainly.

The Ratcatcher and fear

Quotation	Where	Method	Why it earns its place
‘He’s waiting in the shadows.’ / ‘There’s no one there.’	Act Two · Eva	Motif; dramatic irony	What Eva sees and others cannot: fear made theatrical.
‘What’s an abyss, Mutti?’	Act One · Eva	Motif planted	The play’s image for every unbridgeable gap; track it across both acts.
‘The border! It’s the border! Yes! We’re out!’	Act One · Eva	Exclamative; irony	Escape as joy, heard by an audience that knows the price.

How to use this bank

Choose your coursework question first, then pull the six or eight quotations that serve your argument, check each against your copy of the play, and record the page number as you go (your essay must give page references). Remember the checklist: naming the method is only the start. Your marks live in what each choice does, to meaning, and to an audience watching it happen on a stage.