"The School" Blog

It was very difficult for me to try and decipher what the underlying meaning of this short story was. The only thought that came to mind the first time I read the story through was, "Wow, that was depressing." The story begins with the class of children planting numerous orange trees that eventually end up dying. Soon the reader comes to find that this is only one of many occurrences in which something that involves this particular class dies. I like how the the narrator is speaking as if he is casually telling a story to friend or two. "Well, we had all these children out planting trees, see, because we figured that...that was part of their education..." The language is easy to understand and straight forward. As the story progresses, the subjects that die become more and more shocking. It begins with orange trees, snakes, herb gardens, tropical fish, and a salamander, but it soon advances to a puppy, parents and grandparents of the children in the class, and even two classmates. At the end of the story, the children address the teacher and ask him where all of these things that died went? "They asked me, where did they go? The trees, the salamander, the tropical fish, Edgar..." He answers them honestly saying he  doesn't know. The children then go deeper and begin to ponder whether death is the meaning of life. At this point I began to question the age of these children. From the beginning I assumed that they were rather young, but at the end of the story they seem to be so bright and wise. For example in this line, "Then they said, but isn't death, considered as a fundamental datum, the means by which the taken-for-granted mundanity of the everyday may be transcended in the direction of--" I definitely was not speaking like this when I was a child. Then the class begins to ask the teacher about sex. I am not really clear at all on what the meaning of this portion of the story is. Perhaps a loss of innocence? Finally at the very end of the story a new gerbil is brought into the classroom and "The children cheer wildly." Does this represent hope perhaps? Even though the children have had rotten luck in the past, they are optimistic that the new gerbil will be a turning point and break the curse. Maybe he will actually survive. This is how I wish to interpret the ending. However, it could just be an endless cycle, and the gerbil may soon bite the dust, just like those who came before him.

VOCABULARY:
Gristede's: A chain of small supermarkets