ENGL 2581: Women Writers

Professor Sigler

Key Quotes from Jane Campion's The Piano

Below are some of the key quotes discussed in class, in the order in which they appear in the film. Both the film and film script are also available from the UMD library's reserve desk.

Ada: The voice you hear is not my speaking voice—but my mind's voice. I have not spoken since I was six years old. No one knows why—not even me. My father says it is a dark talent, and the day I take it into my head to stop breathing will be my last. Today he married me to a man I have not yet met. Soon my daughter and I shall join him in his own country. My husband writes that my muteness does not bother him—and hark this! He says, "God loves dumb creatures, so why not I?" 'Twere good he had God's patience, for silence affects everyone in the end. The strange thing is, I don't think myself silent. That is because of my piano. I shall miss it on the journey.

Stewart: What do you think?

Stewart nods towards Ada. Baines thinks a moment then turns toward Ada too.

Baines: She looks tired.

Stewart: She's stunted, that's one thing.

Stewart: What do they [the Maoris] want [the land] for? They don't cultivate it, burn it back, anything. How do they even know it's theirs . . .?

Flora: One day when my mother and father were singing together in the forest, a great storm blew up out of nowhere. But so passionate was their singing that they did not notice, nor did they stop as the rain began to fall, and when their voices rose for the final bars of the duet a great bolt of lighting came out of the sky and struck my father so that he lit up like a torch. And at the same moment my father was struck dead my mother was struck dumb! She never spoke another word.

Ada: I have told you the story of your father many, many times.

Flora: Oh, tell me again! Was he your teacher?

Ada: Yes.

Flora: How did you speak to him?

Ada: I didn't need to speak. I could lay thoughts out in his mind like they were a sheet.

Flora: Why didn't you get married?

Ada: He became frightened and stopped listening.

Flora: Actually, to tell you the whole truth, Mother says that most people speak rubbish, and it's not worth it to listen.

Aunt Morag: Well, that is a strong opinion.

Flora: Aye. It's unholy.

Stewart: ...with time she will, I'm sure, become affectionate.
Aunt Morag: Certainly there is nothing so easy to like as a pet, and they are quite silent.

Baines: I am giving the piano back to you. I've had enough. The arrangement is making you a whore and me wretched. I want you to care for me, but you can't.

Flora: I know why Mr. Baines can't play the piano. She never gives him a turn. She just plays whatever she pleases and sometimes she doesn't play at all.

Stewart: And when is the next lesson?

Flora: Tomorrow.

Ada's note to Baines, engraved on the piano key: DEAR GEORGE, YOU HAVE MY HEART, ADA McGRATH.

Ada: What a death! What a chance! What a surprise! My will has chosen life! Still it has had me spooked and many others besides!

Ada: George has fashioned me a metal finger tip; I am quite the town freak which satisfies! I am learning to speak. My sound is still so bad I feel ashamed. I practice only when I am alone and it is dark.

Ada: At night I think of my piano in its ocean grave, and sometimes of myself floating above it. Down there everything is so still and silent that it lulls me to sleep. It is a weird lullaby and so it is; it is mine.

Ada: There is a silence where hath been no sound / There is a silence where no sound may be / In the cold grave, under the deep deep sea. [From "Silence," a sonnet by the English Romantic poet Thomas Hood (1799-1845).]