Last Lesson of the Afternoon By D.H. Lawrence

University Degree Education and Teaching

Last Lesson of the Afternoon.

The writer of this poem D.H. Laurence was born in 1885 in Nottinghamshire. He became a teacher but he was unhappy with his career so after the publishing of his first novel “The White Peacock” he became a full time writer. Laurence is known much more for his novels than his poetry, as they were very controversial and stole the limelight. Laurence had a lot of talents as he also genres as poetry, short stories, letters, essays and travel. Much of Laurence’s work is deeply personal. We see this theme in the largely autobiographical “Sons and Lovers”. In this poem Laurence expresses a frame of mind of extreme anxiety.

This poem looks at the relationship between teacher and pupil. Relationships between teachers and pupils are often love hate. Teachers often stand in the way of pupils wants to misbehave while trying to teach them the necessities of their subject. The relationship like any other has to be two ways or it fails, struggling.

In the first stanza we get the feeling that the relationship between the teacher and his pupils are strained. The writer gives the impression and creates the illusion of the children as a:

“pack of unruly hounds”

The pupils are like dogs and the teacher, their owner tugs their leaches that restrain them, trying to control them. Yet they still struggle as they are unwilling to learn or be taught. The writer is just waiting for the bell to ring as his class is exhausting him. The class are fighting against him, refusing to learn or gain knowledge:

“a quarry of knowledge they hate to hunt”

The teacher has pulled them kicking and screaming through the lesson and is tired out and hasn’t got enough strength left to try to teach them any longer.

The writer in the second stanza has totally given up on the class. The class is careless and he feels that they have no manners as they insult him by handing in shoddy work. He feels that they are giving him untidy work with little effort put into it from the pupils; he feels it’s a personal insult. The teacher accessed the careless, untidy work that is given to him by his class; he feels the blotted pages are insulting. Throughout the entirety of the poem the language used by the poet is negative. For instance at the beginning of the second stanza the writer speaks of how he:

“No longer can I endure the brunt’

Of the books that lie out on the desks”

This is a preview of the whole essay

“No longer can I endure the brunt’

Of the books that lie out on the desks”

There is a feeling that the speaker has been shown bad work from the pupils before and can no longer preserver to look and mark their “slovenly work”. From the speakers use of description for the children’s work we feel they too have a negative feeling towards their work as they have given him careless and untidy work. As the speaker is so depressed with his class he takes their work as an insult to his teaching ability. We see negative language used again in the last stanza. The teacher is sick and tired and is searching for the point of why he’s doing this. He cannot see the benefit for him or his pupils from his:

“What good to them or me, I cannot see!”

In this stanza he uses alteration to emphasise his disappointment.

The writer on the first line of the third stanza makes an important decision, he decides to keep all his energy for himself and fuel his soul, his spirit with it. He wishes to keep his life force alight “kindle my will to a flame”. He refuses the indifference of these pupils dull his light. The writer refuses to let the pupils get to him. He will not let their insults annoy him or zap his strength he emphasises this point and is defiant “I will not!”

In the fourth stanza the speaker no longer cares for his class for he is submerged in saving his energy to fuel his inner being and worrying is draining and pointless to him. He questions why he should care about correcting their mistakes. He senses a feeling of futility, he tells of how he feels his teaching s going down into “abyss” and disappearing.

By the fifth stanza the writer has lost all worth of teaching and feels no responsibility for caring if they can do their work.

“What does it matter to me,”

The pupils are working on writing a description of a dog this suggests that the pupils are either young or weak making their work to him mundane. He yet again questions why he continues with this. He uses a colloquialism, a common expression to express that it’s all the same, that there’s no point:

“it is all my aunt!”

While by society he is supposed to care, it’s his job to care and put his mind, body and soul into teaching and expanding their minds he realizes this but cannot cope.

In the last stanza he shows great negativity and stubbornness:

“I do not, and will not; they won’t and they don’t.

He feels that he cannot change them by doing anything, he is very futile. There is an uncross able gulf between the teacher and the pupils, he feels they are from two different planets. This poem shows the great gulf that lies between teacher and pupil and deals with it. They live indifferent worlds come from different backgrounds have little in common and live completely different lives. This is very much emphasised in the last stanza:

“I shall keep my strength for myself; they can keep theirs

as well.”

He no longer feels like using his energy upon them but keeping it for himself and that they can do the same:

“I shall keep my strength for myself; they can keep theirs

as well.”

The writer feels unwilling to quarrel with the pupils any more as he feels it’s like banging their heads of the walls of each other, pointless on both sides. He feels they are like a wall as they cannot be urged to learn and he can’t move or go around them. While to the pupils he is like a wall standing between them and freedom. In the last stanza the writer uses the image of a wall to explain the relationship between him and his pupils:

“Why should we beat our heads against the wall

Of each other?”

To the teacher the children represent a wall for him. A wall is impenetrable, strong and stubborn. The pupils are stubborn like a wall and refuse to be taught; they have no desire for knowledge and resist cooperating with the teacher. The teacher represents a wall to them as a barrier that stands between them and freedom and one which they are unable to get around or over. The speaker may not fully understand his pupil’s backgrounds or why they refuse to learn. His only resort is to sit and wait for the bell to free him of this cage.

We see the negative attitude of not only the writer but the pupil also. The children give the impression of not wanting to learn and therefore they don’t. The speaker understands that he is expected to care about the work of his pupils yet has had enough of their indifference and now is keeping what energy and strength left within him for himself.

Throughout the poem the poet uses questions for example

“What is the point of this teaching of mine, and of this

Learning of theirs?”

The teacher is questioning the intellect of the pupils that don’t wish to be educated. There is also an underlying sense of futility running through the poem. The teacher feels that the teaching of his and the learning of theirs disappears into the same “abyss” the same black hole.

Just like the poem ‘Follower’ by Seamus Heaney it is divided into six stanzas. There is a rhyme scheme to the poem but it is not at all very regular, unlike the ‘Follower’. In the ‘Follower’ there is a regular pattern showing uniformity like his fathers repetitive ploughing. In the poem some of the lines rhyme showing a sense of order. It is obvious that the pupils resist the control of the teacher so like the rhyme scheme it is not in order.

Throughout the poem the tone expressed is bitterness. There is a feeling of desperation at the thanklessness expressed in the teachers work. There is an underlying feeling of stubbornness, determination and resilience to their imperfections. In the third stanza he is determined to take:

“My last dear fuel of life to heap on my soul

And kindle my will to a flame”

The teacher is determined to withhold his energy from his pupils and use it on his soul. He has decided to keep his energy for himself and will no longer waste it on worrying about his class. His external senses have been dulled by the indifference between them, but he will kind his flame.

The only middle ground that unites them is they both are waiting for this class to end:

“When will the bell ring, and end this weariness?”

This poem deals very well with a failed relationship and a lack o understanding between two groups of people. The pupils do not appreciate there given education but there is a feeling that the work is mundane:

“What does it matter to me, if they can write

A description of a dog, or if they can’t?”

Perhaps just like their teacher they too have become disillusioned.

By Diane Smith.