School Days

The narrator in this story is talking about his school days.  Though he can remember some things that he enjoyed at school, this story seems to be primarily about how he was mistreated at school and how the headmaster and mistress seemed to ingrain within him and the others a sense of inferiority and would discipline them for things that they didn’t understand so that they would feel guilty over something they hadn’t done or something that was misunderstood. 

One thing that struck out to me was his sense of continual hunger there and how it was accepted in his time that they should be hungry.  Though my school by no means starved us, as we grew older, the lunch portions were often not large enough.  Students got the same portions from kindergarten up until we graduated.  While one grilled cheese sandwich, a bowl of tomato soup, and a small side something else may be enough for the younger students, it quickly failed to completely fill us up.  In ninth through twelfth grade, you were last ones eating and could sometimes mooch leftovers.  But for everyone else, it was common to order extra food or to have money on hand to buy snacks.  Though we were often frustrated with this, it was accepted as normal and the older students had worked around it.

It wasn’t until after he left the school that he realized that not everything that they said was law and they were not always right.  The one boy, Horne, was expelled and they were horrified for him and afraid for himself, sure that he was now going to fail.  Instead, when they saw him next, he looked better and healthier than any of them.  Horne even seemed glad to be gone and going to a different school.  Still, he was looked upon with fear and pity.  They still expected to be punished for his supposed crimes.