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Susan Friedman
Mr. Ramsey is one of the English masters at the narrator’s school and the advisor to the English club. When Dean Makepeace leaves the school, Mr. Ramsey helps oversee the narrator’s expulsion: he drives him to the train station and gives him a pack of cigarettes before he leaves. Years later, Mr. Ramsey becomes the headmaster of the school and invites the narrator back as a visiting writer. He assures the narrator that he belongs in the company of the other great writers at the school and also tells the full story of Dean Makepeace leaving the school on the same day that the narrator was expelled.
Mr. Ramsey Quotes in Old School
The Old School quotes below are all either spoken by Mr. Ramsey or refer to Mr. Ramsey. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 7: When in Disgrace with Fortune Quotes
A steady line of wilted-looking passengers jostled past me into the carriage. Time to make a move. I pushed through to a forward-facing window seat, claimed it with my overnighter—my gladstone—took out In Our Time, and made my way to the smoking car.
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Mr. Ramsey Character Timeline in Old School
The timeline below shows where the character Mr. Ramsey appears in Old School. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 3: Frost
Frost reads several more poems and then takes a few questions. Mr. Ramsey , one of the English teachers, asks Frost if his rigidly formal poetic structure is...
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...but Mrs. Ramsey—the most attractive of the faculty wives—does. She says she’s standing in for Mr. Ramsey (who advises the English Club), who isn’t feeling well. Mrs. Ramsey and Mr. Rice, another...
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Chapter 7: When in Disgrace with Fortune
One morning a few days later, Mr. Ramsey asks to have a word with the narrator. He pulls him aside and remarks on...
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...praise is so muted, that much of the interview is comprised of advice, and that Mr. Ramsey seems to have censored some of Hemingway’s words. Still, the narrator is excited about the...
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...friend Ernest Hemingway. When he arrives, the headmaster is in the dean’s office, along with Mr. Ramsey , Mr. Lambert, and Goss, the president of the Student Honor Council. Dean Makepeace isn’t...
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Mr. Ramsey asks how this happened. The narrator doesn’t answer. The headmaster says that a teacher at...
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The headmaster says that Mr. Lambert and Mr. Ramsey will collect what the narrator needs for the trip home—his father has already been notified....
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Mr. Ramsey returns with the narrator’s suitcase, and the two get into Mr. Ramsey’s car. As they...
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When the narrator and Mr. Ramsey arrive at the station, the narrator asks what his father said when he found out....
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The narrator asks why Dean Makepeace wasn’t there. Mr. Ramsey says that the dean had personal matters to attend to and left the school that...
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The train arrives. Mr. Ramsey tells the narrator that he’ll work things out and sticks the pack of cigarettes in...
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Chapter 9: Bulletin
...day he died, excepting 1961–1962. The headmaster retires in 1968 and is eventually replaced by Mr. Ramsey , who invites the narrator back as a visiting writer many years later. The narrator...
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The following spring, the narrator meets Mr. Ramsey by chance in a hotel in Seattle. They catch up until the narrator can’t help...
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The narrator asks about the story of the day he was expelled. Mr. Ramsey says that it concerns Dean Makepeace: he explains that the dean’s leaving and the narrator’s...
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