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Koby and Loby
The teacher is the only man in Güllen (besides Ill) to acknowledge the insidiousness of the Gülleners new spending habits after Claire’s promise of a billion dollars in exchange for Ill’s death. He struggles to balance his devotion to humanist philosophy with his desire for material gain. He and the Doctor visit Claire at the beginning of Act III, hoping to dissuade her from killing Ill. When that doesn’t work, he nearly reveals Claire’s plot to the journalists visiting Güllen, but ultimately finds himself unable to resist her promise of money.
Teacher Quotes in The Visit
The The Visit quotes below are all either spoken by Teacher or refer to Teacher. 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:
).
Act 3 Quotes
The temptation is too great and our poverty is too wretched. But I know something else. I too will take part in it. I can feel myself slowly turning into a murderer. My faith in humanity is powerless. And because I know this, I have turned into a drunk. I am scared, Ill, just as you have been scared. I still know that some day an old lady will visit us too, and that then what is happening to you now will happen to us, but soon, maybe in a few hours, I will no longer know it.
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In this passage, the Teacher (who has been the play’s most steadfast defender of sparing Ill’s life and keeping to humanist values) has finally relented to the fact that he will participate in murdering Ill. This passage is chilling because the Teacher knows that what he’s doing is wrong, but he also knows that he and the rest of the town cannot resist doing it. It shakes his faith in humanity, as he says, and terrifies him, because it shows him that his humanist worldview is wrong—the world is much more selfish and dark than he has ever admitted. This 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 est. Mollitia eaque ipsa. Perferendis consectetur et. Dicta impedit ut. Ducimus possimus quo. Non inventore in. Eligendi atque placeat. Molestiae earum eum. Libero sit beatae. At a deserunt. Sint aperiam consequatur. Minima porro perferendis. Sit neque odit. Tenetur qui dignissimos. Qui et ut. Voluptate labore corpori
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Teacher Character Timeline in The Visit
The timeline below shows where the character Teacher appears in The Visit. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Act 1
The Schoolmaster, the Mayor, the Priest, and Alfred Ill, Güllen’s “most popular personality,” arrive at the railway...
(full context)
...the cat, and the coffin as only the whims of a “world-famous [lady],” but the Teacher finds them unsettling. In fact, he finds everything about Claire unsettling, and compares her to...
(full context)
Act 3
...barn is strewn with enormous spiderwebs, and apparently is so dark that the Doctor and Teacher, who have come to visit Claire, struggle to find her. She tells the men that...
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The Teacher and Doctor announce that they have come to Claire to discuss her offer: they explain...
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But to the horror of the Teacher and Doctor, Claire informs them that she already owns Güllen’s industrial sites—and that it was...
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Claire takes leave of the disheartened Teacher and Doctor and we cut to Ill’s general store. The once dingy and dated shop...
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The Teacher enters the shop and begins to drink heavily. The other customers in the shop decline...
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Up to this point, the Teacher has been not only drinking heavily, but also growing increasingly perturbed by the Gülleners’ dishonesty...
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...Not long after, Ill’s wife and her customers also take off, leaving Ill and the Teacher alone. The Teacher tells Ill that he was trying to help him, to tell the...
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Ill’s resignation sobers the Teacher, who recognizes that, in a way, Ill is to blame for Güllen’s dire current situation....
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The Teacher takes the stage and cryptically reminds the town that the donation will not come cheaply....
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