Chapter 6 of 27 · 4'16"
Tony's mother treats his romance as a problem to be managed, dismissing the girl as unsuitable: "Boys like Tony don't marry stenographers." Meanwhile Tony proposes to Alice in his usual roundabout way, admitting that if she looks under the surface she will find a proposal.
The Kirbys Discuss Alice
❝ Monologue · 4 lines Tony's absurd cautionary tale
He turns a simple date into a fatal fable, and the deadpan delivery is the joke.
Tony's Roundabout Proposal
At the office, Tony's mother complains that he has become serious about his secretary and insists the family do something about it. Firing the girl is rejected as no solution. Later, Tony proposes to Alice, though he does it so indirectly that she has to look for it.
The chapter sets up the film's central class conflict in a single line: "Boys like Tony don't marry stenographers." The mother says it as a fact of nature, and nobody in the room disagrees. What makes it interesting is that Kirby himself is distracted by a business crisis and treats his son's life as an administrative problem, solved by firing someone. Against that, Tony's proposal is almost the opposite of his family's logic: he refuses to be direct, calling himself left-handed, and hides the offer inside a joke. Alice has to decide whether to trust the man or the family he comes from.
A1–C2 is the CEFR scale. Cards above the level you pick fade, and playback will not auto-pause on them.
“The girl's a stenographer. Boys like Tony don't marry stenographers.”
A plain sentence turns a class line into common sense, and the repetition makes the prejudice sound final.
Neutral
“I never in my life wanted anything that I couldn't get if I just yelled loud enough.”
The boast hides a spoiled childhood behind casual confidence, which is exactly Tony's voice.
Informal
“You know, if you scratch under the surface here you'll find a proposal lying around.”
It wraps a proposal in a joke about digging, letting him mean it without saying it plainly.
Informal
“Sometimes you're so beautiful it just gags me.”
Shows affection through comic exaggeration.
Informal
I knew two people that did that once. They went out of the building. They were uncertain, so they just walked and walked, and walked and finally they just died of hunger. Now, you wouldn't want anything like that to happen. Because if that happened...
Up next · 07keel overThe scene: Grandpa Tells Alice About GrandmaShe is Tony's secretary, and they consider a stenographer beneath their son. Tony's mother treats the relationship as a problem the family needs to fix.
No. He suggests it, but is told that firing the girl will not settle anything, because the problem is his son rather than the job.
Indirectly. He tells her to scratch under the surface and she will find a proposal lying around, admitting that he is left-handed and cannot say things straight.
He calls them putty in his hands and says he has always got what he wanted by yelling loud enough, which is both a joke and a confession about how he was raised.
