Analysis of Dancing Classes by Gwen Raverat

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Shubh Chabra

Analysis of ‘Dancing Classes’ by Gwen Raverat….

        Childhoods suppose to be the best moment of one’s life. Usually when we recall our childhood, we see naughtiness, eagerness to learn something new, filled with questions and most of all being happy. Children love dancing whereas the writer, Gwen Raverat author of ‘A Cambridge Childhood’ used to hate them. She did not enjoy at all and she dint jus have problems with dancing, she mentions “dancing class was the worst of the social events which I dreaded as a child”. She never liked to do anything.

The passage is to simple, descriptive and narrative paragraphs. This passage is in first person narration. The first paragraph is about all that she was made to do and the other one was how she took revenge on them. The first impression that the reader gets about this passage is very obvious that according to her she's not had a good childhood. Shows that she remembers each and every detail, like the name of the teacher she disliked. Generally when something we don’t like happens to us it’s hard to forget. According to me the same has happened to the writer.

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In line five, the writer feels embarrassed about wearing her “white frock and pink sash” which according to her was beautiful but “not one me” she said. We can see the embarrassment when she says “I felt like a fool”. She goes on about what she was forced to do. Maybe it all looked good on her like “hop”, “wave my arms about” and “stick out my legs”. She could be blinded by her hatred about these things. The shortest sentence used in the extract is “degrading antics” which means humiliating herself on purpose. Then she goes on and uses ...

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