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Terms
A female teacher. However, the term suggests an older, conservative, and strict woman.
Schoolmarm Quotes in Silence! The Court is in Session
The Silence! The Court is in Session quotes below are all either spoken by Schoolmarm or refer to Schoolmarm. For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Act One Quotes
BENARE. In school, when the first bell rings, my foot’s already on the threshold. I haven't heard single reproach for not being on time these past eight years. Nor about my teaching. I’m never behindhand with my lessons! Exercises corrected on time, too! Not a bit of room for disapproval—I don’t give an inch of it to any one!
SAMANT. You're a schoolmarm, it seems?
BENARE. No, a teacher! Do I seem the complete schoolmarm to you? SAMANT. No, no… I didn’t mean it like that…
BENARE. Say it if you like...
SAMANT. But I didn’t say it at all! A schoolmarm just means … someone who—teaches—instructs!—children—that’s what I meant to say...
BENARE. They’re so much better than adults. At least they don’t have that blind pride of thinking they know everything. There’s no nonsense stuffed in their heads. They don’t scratch you till you bleed, then run away like cowards.
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Explanation and Analysis:
Benare, who has recently been fired (which neither Samant nor the audience knows), has spent much of her adult life invested in her work. She identitifies as a teacher and is unable to exist outside of this identity. She also feels the need to emphasize how good she was at her work, both as a rebuke to her superiors who fired her and as a way to signal her value in her middleclass circles. Benare dislikes the term schoolmarm because it paints an unflattering picture of who she is and what she does. Schoolmarm implies an older woman—a spinster who Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rerum voluptas debitis. Voluptatem accusantium es
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Schoolmarm Term Timeline in Silence! The Court is in Session
The timeline below shows where the term Schoolmarm appears in Silence! The Court is in Session. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Act One
Samant asks if Benare is a schoolmarm but she corrects him, preferring to call herself a teacher. She tells Samant how she...
(full context)
Act Two
Sukhatme grills Ponkshe on his relationship to Benare. Ponkshe describes her as a “schoolmarm” which Benare protests as she is “still quite young!” When she interrupts again Kashikar reminds...
(full context)
