Key Quotations (AQA A-Level English Literature A): Revision Notes

Key Quotations

Introduction

This revision note provides essential quotations from The Go-Between by L.P. Hartley, organised thematically to support your understanding of the novel's key ideas. Each quotation is accompanied by analysis to help you explore its significance within the text. These quotes are particularly useful for developing your essay responses and demonstrating detailed textual knowledge in examinations.

Memory and the past

The novel's famous opening line

The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.

This celebrated opening sentence establishes one of the novel's central concerns: the relationship between memory and identity. Hartley presents the past as an alien, distant place that operates according to different rules and values. The phrase sets up Leo's narrative journey as he revisits his traumatic childhood summer, suggesting that time has fundamentally altered his perspective. The metaphor of a 'foreign country' emphasises how memory can make our earlier selves seem like strangers to us. This quotation frames Leo's recollection as both nostalgic and haunting, introducing the theme of how the past continues to shape and trouble the present.

Attempts at reconciliation

Try now, try now, it isn't too late.

This plea captures Leo's desperate hope for redemption and healing in his later years. The repetition of 'try now' conveys both urgency and the fragility of this final opportunity. The phrase reflects Leo's adult attempt to come to terms with events that scarred his childhood, suggesting a desire to reclaim lost innocence or achieve some form of peace. However, the very need to reassure himself that 'it isn't too late' hints at underlying doubt about whether genuine reconciliation with the past is truly possible. This quotation reveals the lasting psychological damage caused by that summer and Leo's ongoing struggle to move beyond it.

Loss of innocence

The Icarus parallel

You flew too near to the sun, and you were scorched.

Leo's adult narrator uses this classical allusion to reflect on his childhood experience of gaining forbidden knowledge. The reference to the Greek myth of Icarus creates a powerful metaphor for his fall from innocence. The verb 'scorched' suggests permanent damage and pain, indicating that exposure to adult secrets and sexual realities left deep psychological burns. This quotation links Leo's youthful idealism to Icarus's fatal ambition, suggesting that his involvement in the adult world came at a terrible cost. The mythological framework elevates the personal trauma to archetypal significance, showing how Leo's experience follows a timeless pattern of innocence destroyed by overreaching.

The burden of reality

To see things as they really were—what an impoverishment!

This revealing statement captures Leo's retrospective recognition that adult understanding came at the expense of childhood wonder. The word 'impoverishment' suggests that harsh truths stripped away richness rather than adding wisdom. Where we might expect knowledge to enrich life, Hartley shows it depleting and diminishing Leo's experience. The quotation emphasises how discovering adult realities—particularly regarding sexuality and class—destroyed the magical quality of Leo's childhood world. The exclamation mark conveys the narrator's bitter realisation that innocence possessed its own valuable truth, perhaps more sustaining than the painful realities that replaced it.

Childhood perspective and silence

Leo as observer

Grown-ups didn't seem to realize that for me, as for most other schoolboys, it was easier to keep silent than to speak. I was a natural oyster.

This passage illuminates Leo's childhood position as a silent witness to adult affairs. The phrase 'natural oyster' creates a vivid image of someone closed off and protective of inner thoughts. Hartley reveals how adults underestimated Leo's awareness whilst simultaneously exploiting his discretion. The quotation underscores Leo's role as an observer rather than participant, someone forced into unwilling complicity through his inability to speak out. The comparison to 'most other schoolboys' suggests this silence wasn't unique to Leo but reflected broader childhood powerlessness in Edwardian society. This silence ultimately contributes to the tragedy, as Leo carries messages he doesn't fully understand, unable to articulate his growing discomfort.

The idealised world of childhood

I was free from all my imperfections and limitations; I belonged to another world, the celestial world. I was one with my dream life.

These lines capture the dreamlike, transcendent quality of Leo's childhood experience before disillusionment set in. The phrase 'celestial world' suggests an almost heavenly state of being, divorced from earthly concerns and constraints. Hartley contrasts this idealised realm with the 'grim adult world' that Leo eventually confronts. The description reveals how childhood existed as a space of imaginative freedom where Leo felt complete and unlimited. This quotation emphasises what Leo lost through his involvement in the adult affair—not just innocence but an entire sense of belonging to a magical, protected realm. The nostalgic tone conveys profound longing for this lost state of grace.

Emotional turmoil and awakening

Overwhelming feelings

Excitement, like hysteria, bubbled up in me from a hundred unsealed springs.

This powerful image conveys the overwhelming emotional intensity young Leo experienced as he became aware of the dangerous secrets surrounding him. The comparison to 'hysteria' suggests feelings barely contained or controlled, threatening to spill over. The metaphor of 'unsealed springs' evokes something previously dormant suddenly released with force, indicating Leo's awakening to adult passions and tensions. The verb 'bubbled' creates an impression of pressure building beneath the surface. This quotation captures the moment when Leo begins to sense, if not fully comprehend, the charged atmosphere between Marian and Ted. His emotional response foreshadows the catastrophic revelation to come.

Knowledge and wisdom

The limitations of intellect

Knowledge may be power, but it is not resilience, or resourcefulness, or adaptability to life.

This mature reflection contrasts intellectual understanding with the practical and emotional capabilities needed to navigate life's challenges. Hartley distinguishes between mere 'knowledge'—facts and information—and the deeper qualities of 'resilience' and 'adaptability' that enable healthy functioning. The quotation suggests that Leo's acquisition of knowledge about adult sexuality and relationships failed to equip him for dealing with these realities. Instead, this knowledge damaged his ability to cope, leaving him emotionally stunted.

Moments of transcendence

Fleeting freedom

What did we talk about that has left me with an impression of wings and flashes, as of air displaced by the flight of a bird?

This beautifully poetic reflection evokes ephemeral moments of freedom and possibility within the novel's constrained social world. The imagery of 'wings and flashes' suggests something beautiful but barely glimpsed, impossible to fully capture or hold. The simile comparing memory to 'air displaced by the flight of a bird' creates a sense of something felt rather than seen, an after-effect rather than the thing itself. This quotation demonstrates Hartley's lyrical prose style whilst capturing how certain conversations or experiences transcended the rigid social boundaries of the era. The vagueness ('What did we talk about') suggests these moments mattered more for their emotional quality than their specific content.

Social class and hierarchy

Ingrained class consciousness

Why do you like Hugh better? Because he is a Viscount... Respect for degree was in my blood.

This admission reveals the deeply embedded class consciousness that shapes Leo's attitudes and relationships throughout the novel. The phrase 'in my blood' suggests something inherited and fundamental, beyond rational choice or control. Hartley exposes how social hierarchy determined even childhood friendships, with titles and rank mattering more than personal qualities. The use of 'degree' (meaning social position or rank) reflects the formal stratification of Edwardian society. This quotation is central to understanding the novel's critique of class systems and helps explain why Leo becomes entrapped in carrying messages—his deference to his social superiors prevents him from refusing. The class system functions as another form of imprisonment in the novel.

Secrecy and imprisonment

The destructive power of silence

Secrecy and silence are the walls of a prison.

This metaphor powerfully conveys how hidden truths and unspoken feelings trap and constrain the characters. The image of 'walls of a prison' suggests both confinement and punishment, indicating that secrets don't protect but rather imprison those who keep them. For Leo, maintaining silence about the affair between Marian and Ted creates psychological barriers that prevent healthy development and honest relationships. The quotation applies to multiple characters: Marian trapped by social expectations, Ted constrained by class barriers, and Leo imprisoned by his role as unwitting accomplice.

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