Tally's Blood: Key Character Quotations (SQA National 5 English): Revision Note

Key word or phrase to memorise:

“While we still can” and “frightened”

What the quotation means:

Massimo’s fears about staying in Scotland as war begins, are proven correct: he is arrested with other Italians who are scared for family fighting on opposing sides

Theme: 

War and nationalism 

• Di Mambro’s character, Pedreschi, poignantly illustrates the immigrant experience in Scotland during World War II:

  • His fear at the outbreak of war is presented via a short sentence that conveys his tension

  • His immediate thought is to return to his homeland where he will not be seen as the enemy 

• The effects of nationalism are portrayed in Massimo’s monologue (opens in a new tab) in which his emotive words describe the fear he and other Italians felt upon arrest:

  • Di Mambro depicts Italian immigrants caught between two countries

Key word or phrase to memorise:

“hardest love of all”

What the quotation means:

Before Lucia goes back to Italy, Massimo tells Rosinella that loving Lucia has been the most challenging love in his life

Theme: 

Love and marriage

• Di Mambro presents Massimo as a kind family man who loves Lucia as if she was his own:

  • Although he has tried to prepare himself for her to return to Luigi, he expresses his strong feelings in a heartfelt, hyperbolic epigram 

Key word or phrase to memorise:

“To steal you away”

What the quotation means:

At the end of the play Massimo holds a ladder against Luigi’s house and calls to Rosinella: he reenacts their marriage by pretending to “steal” her and take her to Scotland 

Theme: 

Love and marriage 

• The play’s denouement is humorous and romantic:

  • When Hughie comes to rescue Lucia, Di Mambro subverts a romantic moment in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet 

  • Massimo’s sentimental words to Rosinella reenact their elopement

Key word or phrase to memorise:

“Scotch people”

What the quotation means:

Rosinella is certain the family will not have any troubles if Italy joins the war because they have their own business

Theme: 

War and nationalism 

• Di Mambro’s naturalistic play depicts the responses of Italian immigrants in Britain as World War II puts their loyalty and position in the country to the test

• The play presents the immigrant experience humorously through Rosinella’s blunt comments:

  • Her comment about taking “jobs away from Scotch people” is a wry dig at common criticisms towards immigrants

Key word or phrase to memorise:

“Marry your own kind” and “Me an Italian as well”

What the quotation means:

Rosinella make two comments to Franco about being Italian: she believes Italians should marry Italians, and that they are supposed to have big families 

Theme: 

Cultural identity  

• Di Mambro illustrates how Rosinella’s strong links to her Italian heritage causes family tension:

  • Her discriminatory comment to Franco, that the Scottish Bridget Devlin is only good enough to “play” with, presents her as intolerant 

• Her prejudice towards the Devlins, though, is partly a result of jealousy:

  • Her criticism of Mrs Devlin’s family is, in fact, frustration

  • Her sense of injustice about her childlessness is tied up in her proud cultural identity

  • The broken and exclamatory sentences convey the pain she feels

• Di Mambro shows how Rosinella’s strong sense of identity brings suffering

Key word or phrase to memorise:

“locked me in a room” and “stole me out the window”

What the quotation means:

Rosinella tells Lucia how she avoided a forced arranged marriage: Massimo rescued her and they eloped

Theme: 

Love and marriage 

• The play’s cyclical structure presents the theme of love and marriage:

  • In this line at the end of Act 1, Rosinella describes Massimo’s rescue

  • The same circumstances occur at the end of Act 2, when Hughie and Lucia escape Luigi’s house and her planned marriage

  • Massimo holds a ladder against Luigi’s house and calls to Rosinella that he has come to take her away

• Di Mambro raises ideas about arranged marriage and marriage for love:

  • Rosinella’s love for Massimo softens her attitude to Hughie and Lucia’s love

• Both Rosinella and Lucia choose love over cultural tradition

Key word or phrase to memorise:

“sit with the whole family”

What the quotation means:

Franco tells Bridget he prefers seeing her to Italian girls because in Italy parents are much stricter

Theme: 

Love and marriage 

• Di Mambro’s portrayal of Franco’s relationship with Bridget is light-hearted:

  • His comment is humorous as it mocks strict Italian parents 

• While Rosinella is proud of her Italian heritage, Franco is dismissive:

  • His love for Bridget raises themes about love across culture

Key word or phrase to memorise:

“a wee pokey shop” and “All the other wee boys and girls”

What the quotation means:

After Franco tells Rosinella he does not want to follow in his father’s footsteps, he tells Lucia she must speak English like the other children 

Theme: 

Cultural identity 

• Di Mambro’s Franco represents the idea of breaking away from tradition:

  • He emphasises that he is “young” when he expresses his distaste for living in his father’s shadow and spending his life in a small shop

  • The repetition of “wee” and “pokey” highlights his desire for freedom

• Later, his desire to integrate into British life is conveyed in his words to Lucia:

  • The hyperbole (“All the other” children) and his use of dialect (“wee”) presents his strong beliefs in the idea of fitting in with Scottish life 

Key word or phrase to memorise:

“We cannie” and “wee German”

What the quotation means:

Franco refers to stopping Adolf Hitler  when he talks with Massimo about a possible war 

Theme: 

War and nationalism 

• Franco’s use of first-person plural, “We”, shows that he considers himself to be British, especially in the event of a war with Germany

• His description of Hitler as a “wee German bastard” raises Di Mambro’s themes of nationalism

Key word or phrase to memorise:

“NEVER get what I want” and “pick the olives”

What the quotation means:

Lucia finds her Italian identity challenging throughout the play: she complains about Rosinella’s strict parenting when she is not allowed to go Hughie’s brother’s wedding, and, later, she complains about how hard her life is in Italy with her father

Theme: 

Cultural identity

• Lucia’s journey to independence is marked by a sense of injustice

• The repetition of “never” across two short, tense sentences show frustration 

• Di Mambro presents the challenges of Lucia’s dual-culture:

  • While she has a good life in Scotland and Rosinella and Massimo spoil her somewhat, she finds their rules difficult to obey

  • Later, back in Italy with her father, she has a much harder time

Key word or phrase to memorise:

“Cinderella coach” and “not even my room”

What the quotation means:

When Hughie wants to declare his love to Lucia she shows him her new charm, but, later, when he comes to rescue her from a forced marriage to Luigi’s neighbour, Lucia tells Hughie that he has been calling into the wrong room 

Theme: 

Love and marriage 

• The romance between Hughie and Lucia is light-hearted and funny:

  • Their love is prevented by misunderstandings, and Hughie’s hesitation

• At the start of Act 2, Di Mambro foreshadows their fairytale romance by mentioning Cinderella:

  • In Italy, Lucia is made to work hard in the house, like Cinderella

• Di Mambro subverts the balcony scene in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet:

  • At the end of Act 2, Hughie’s declaration of love to Lucia in her father’s house is humorous as she criticises Hughie’s mistakes

• The humorous romance draws on fairytale-like elements when Hughie tried to rescue Lucia with a ladder