ENC1102 Assigment 1 - An essay where I give my own analysis of The School by Donald Barthelme PDF

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An essay where I give my own analysis of The School by Donald Barthelme...

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Claudio Sciotto Dr. Najla Dahan ENC 1102 06/03/2020 The School by Donald Barthelme The education system in The United States, from my perspective, is very good and efficient. From teenagers starting high school to college graduates following a professional career. We see people all the time finishing their years of education ready to head into the professional field. After looking at this some of us would think that the education system in America is indeed great, but in reality, there is one side people tend to overlook, a deeper and more meaningful subject that we don’t learn through the usual courses. The purpose of life and death. What is the reason of us human beings living in this world? Why value life when death is an inevitable episode in everyone’s life? This is what the author Donald Barthelme, tries to illustrate to us through his short story The School. When thinking of school, I feel that most people have this misunderstanding where teachers are portrayed as sole authoritarian figures with the purpose of transferring their knowledge into the students. It is in the name; the student is there to study the teacher is there to teach. But this idea has a big flaw. Teachers do not have all the answers, in fact, no human has all the answers. Barthelme shows this case throughout his reading with Edgar, the teacher, trying to find excuses or meaning to why all those animals, plants and humans died. In the first paragraph of the reading, for example, we experience the death of all the orange trees planted for a class project, Edgar then tries to find a logical explanation to why they died, saying that it could have been the soil or some “stuff from the nursery that wasn’t the best” (Barthelme 1). We see this

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pattern of death followed by Edgar trying to find logical explanation all over the reading. But then why does he have to find excuses for every death that occurs? In my opinion the problem goes back to the teacher-student problem. He, as a teacher, is expected to have an answer for everything. If he is placed as the leader of the class, he theoretically should be able to explain everything to those students, because in the end he is smarter right? Wrong. Teachers may have more life experience than students, since generally they are older but that doesn’t mean that they know everything better than students. Barthelme portrays this close to the end of the reading. Where one student asked Edgar if it was death that gave meaning to life. Then he responded “No life is that which gives meaning to life” (Barthelme 2) immediately after that the student gave him a logical explanation of how he may be wrong, completely changing his perspective. This allowed Barthelme to show two things. First, now the students where also able to teach the teacher something, or at least make him think about how he could be wrong. Fixing the idea of having one person talk while the others listen to a everyone exchanges opinions and ideas. This, from my viewpoint is a great way to improve the American education system. But now, Barthelme presents a second strong issue behind these last few lines of the reading. The students are now looking at life and death as if it was something logical. They start to think that the sole reason for humans to live is to die. Following up this thought with the expression “it’s a bloody shame” (Barthelme 2) I agree with that expression. We shouldn’t look at death or life from a mundane standpoint. In the reading, specially when we start experiencing humans’ deaths, Edgar continues explaining the reasons behind of them like if it wasn’t a big issue, almost as if their lives had no meaning. The first example is a Korean orphan that the class had adopted so they would give money to him each month. After he died Barthelme doesn’t change the tone of the narrative at all. He still shows Edgar talking like it was just another death.

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Following this we see some parents and grandparents’ deaths. And while we as readers would start to feel the story quickly escalating, the tone of the narrative still remains the same. With this I feel that the author is trying to show how schools are incapable of explaining the most basic and natural human events such as life and death. Leading again to the moment of climax, when the students start questioning the purpose of living. They ask Edgar to have a baby with Helen, the teaching assistant. This shows that still even after experiencing death. The students rather see life be created than destroyed. This is, in my opinion, the most important moment through the story. It shows that it doesn’t matter that all living organisms are eventually sentenced to the inevitable death. We as human beings still bring an inexplicable value to life. He shows this through the students. They for the first time, before the story ends, show excitement and happiness after seeing their teachers kissing. Assuming that this is the way kids would think babies are created. Not only that but right after this someone knocks on the door, only for the kids to be surprised with a new gerbil, one of the animals that died in the story, walking inside the classroom. “The children cheered wildly” (Barthelme 2) those are the last words that the story says once again showing how the students cheer for life even without having anything logical behind it. Barthelme with this short story though us how to American education system is unable to teach students such simple but at the same time meaningful things as life and death. But we can’t really blame it for that. It really is impossible to be certain about whatever happens after we died and what is our purpose of humans living our lives. But one thing that we do know is that we cheer for life, just like the kids cheered for that gerbil. And that no matter what our personal life goals are, as a society we need to help each other live to the fullest, while at the same time not

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being afraid of the inevitable death but on the other hand, when the time comes, to receive it as a gift from the balance of nature.

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Work Cited Barthelme, Donald. The School. 1974...