'The School' by Donald Barthelme.

by carolinek123 (student)

University Degree Education and Teaching

Caroline Kramer

Dr. Elliot

EH 101

12, September 2012

Death gives meaning to life

"The School", by Donald Barthelme, reveals that life is an endless cycle to an audience of young children through an absurd discussion. Children at this age usually struggle to comprehend why tragic events such as the death of a loved one happen in their lives; therefore makes them search for an explanation of why. After experiencing so many deaths in their lives and searching for clarification, the children learn love is worth all the disappointments in life. Most of the deaths that occur in the children’s lives were held responsible on something other than their own self. The children ignore that the orange trees might have died because they overwatered the trees but instead they blame it on the earth. Growing up requires one to face harsh reality and take responsibility for ones actions. Even when multiple things go wrong significance is everywhere in life it just has to be discovered. Death gives meaning to life and the occasions spent with someone or something before it dies become much more meaningful. In “The School”, Barthelme uses the deaths the children face to indicate growing up means overcoming fear, making sacrifices, finding the value in life, taking accountability for actions, and preparing for the unavoidable.

In “The School”, the children’s constant interactions with things that die deceive them into a fixation and fear of death; they don’t realize that life involves positives, too, like love. The children fear so much death- they lose trees, fish, snakes, a puppy, even people- that it cause them to feel like there’s a curse in the school. After the death of the Korean orphan, “the class took [the death] pretty hard, [and] began…to feel that maybe there was something wrong with the school” (20). So much death has led the children to fear its constant presence in their lives. Seeing as the children have little change in their surroundings; thus gives them the idea that the end result, death, is always the same. When the children got the puppy “I thought, Oh Christ, I bet it will live for about two weeks and then…and that’s what it did”(20). With the constant replacements of animals, trees or even people it has directed the children to a fascination of death. Life is a cycle that continuously brings something new and even more superior, however to be pleased with life there is many sacrifices.

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The constant negativity and fear of death in the children’s lives brings about the sacrifices during tough times, which prepare them for overcoming future deaths they may encounter by finding positives that life holds. The interaction and constant replacements of organisms help the children realize and sacrifice during harsh times that death is not worth the mourning because life is a never-ending cycle. At the end of the story the children were talking to Edgar, the teacher about love and all the sudden “there was a knock on the door…and the new gerbil walked in”(21). So many fatalities’ have taught them to move forward because something better will come along, which led them to accepting future deaths with any question. In “The School” the children have been through several tough times but it has helped the children understand that death is part of life’s cycle; which makes it easier for them to overcome potential deaths in an optimistic manner. After the deaths of the tropical fish, the children acknowledge, “there was nothing we could do, it happens every year, you just have to hurry past [death]”(20). The children don’t realize through all the negativity that there are greater things to life than just death; life involves many positives, like love.

In “The School”, Donald Barthelme takes pride in the idea that life is a beautiful thing, accordingly the children learn through seeking comfort and understanding that life should always be celebrated regardless of the fact that one day everything may indeed die. Some of the deaths the children encounter were unknown; Edgar couldn’t even give the children an answer, causing them to seek comfort and an explanation. After the children encounter all the deaths, they simply ask Edgar, “Is death which gives meaning to life? And Edgar responds saying, No life is that which gives meaning to life”(21). The children struggle to recognize life’s continuous cycle and with little explanation of death, led them to have little hope. The children face nothing but death in their life, which gives them no optimism for anything that comes into their life; hence they don’t have sense of the encouraging things life brings and what in life is worth all this disappointment. When getting the tropical fish, the class “expected the tropical fish to die, that was no surprise”(19). So many deaths has directed the children to have no faith that anything will stay alive so they just blame all the deaths on earth.

In “The School” the frequent deaths grasp the children’s mind off maybe they were the ones liable, when children are at a young age they tend to contradict only the wrong courses of action and instead of blaming themselves they blame earth.

The children don’t realize how much work it takes to be responsible and that nobody is perfect, everyone makes mistakes. An element of the children’s schooling is having “the sense of responsibility and taking care of things”(19). Having so much responsibility at such a young age they don’t want to take the blame for doing something wrong but life is about living and learning. The children had the responsibility of planting orange trees; they planted thirty orange trees and the thirty trees died with no explanation as to why. They thought that the trees died because “something [was] wrong with the soil possibly or maybe the stuff we got from the nursery wasn’t the best”(19). Since there was no explanation of why the trees died the children blamed the death on earth, without even thinking about perhaps they did something wrong. Death is an unavoidable part of life but earth isn’t always held responsible for each death.

In “The School”, Barthelme uses the deaths the children face to indicate growing up means understanding and accepting that things will go wrong and when they do one has to move forward. Life isn’t perfect, people die and people change but that doesn’t mean life is over and one should give up, there is a lot of value and sacrifices within life. It’s important to recognize the meaning of life and continue to live life to the fullest, touching as many lives as possible. Only then will you find the real meaning of life and discover that one is held responsible for most of the deaths that come about.