Previous
The Woman
The typing teacher is the antagonist of the unnamed narrator’s manuscript. His character starts off innocently enough—he and the woman apparently fall for each other during a typing class, and they become lovers. However, some time afterwards, the woman’s voice disappears, and he pretends that he will fix her broken typewriter when really he ends up locking in the top room of the clock tower where he teaches typing classes. There, he reveals that he actually was the reason that the woman’s voice went away—he says he “trapped” her voice inside the typewriter. After locking the woman inside the room and preventing her from leaving, the typing teacher physically and mentally abuses her. Eventually, the woman becomes such a shell of her former self that she does not fight back or try to leave—in the end, she is “absorbed” into the room. The typing teacher doesn’t care about her absence, though, and he just picks his next victim out of the young woman in his typing class. The typing teacher can be read as an allegory for the Memory Police, the government-run militia on the island where the narrator lives.
The Typing Teacher Quotes in The Memory Police
The The Memory Police quotes below are all either spoken by The Typing Teacher or refer to The Typing 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:
).
Chapter 12
Quotes
The tapping of the key striking the paper was the only sound in the room. Snow had begun to fall again, covering the tracks I had made […] He continued to hold me tighter […] The bell in the clock tower began to chime. Five o’clock. The vibration came from far above, rattling the window glass and passing through our bodies, before being absorbed by the snow below. The only motion was the falling of the snowflakes. I held my breath, unable to move, as though locked inside the typewriter.
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 15
Quotes
“You’ll forget you ever had a voice,” he continued. “You may find it annoying at first, until you get used to it. You’ll move your lips as you just did, go looking for a typewriter, a notepad. But soon enough you’ll see how pointless it is. You have no need to talk, no need to utter a single word. There’s nothing to worry about, nothing to fear. Then, at last, you’ll be all mine.”
Get the entire The Memory Police LitChart as a printable PDF.
The Typing Teacher Quotes in The Memory Police
The The Memory Police quotes below are all either spoken by The Typing Teacher or refer to The Typing 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:
).
Chapter 12
Quotes
The tapping of the key striking the paper was the only sound in the room. Snow had begun to fall again, covering the tracks I had made […] He continued to hold me tighter […] The bell in the clock tower began to chime. Five o’clock. The vibration came from far above, rattling the window glass and passing through our bodies, before being absorbed by the snow below. The only motion was the falling of the snowflakes. I held my breath, unable to move, as though locked inside the typewriter.
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 15
Quotes
“You’ll forget you ever had a voice,” he continued. “You may find it annoying at first, until you get used to it. You’ll move your lips as you just did, go looking for a typewriter, a notepad. But soon enough you’ll see how pointless it is. You have no need to talk, no need to utter a single word. There’s nothing to worry about, nothing to fear. Then, at last, you’ll be all mine.”
