Monday, January 14, 2013

The School Children anaylsis


The "school children" is a poem by Louise Gluck and I will go line by line trying to analysis the poem from my perspective. The first line starts off with children going forward with their sandals. I thought that the line had a somber tone, because the children were standing and marching like soldiers that go forward. Soldiers wear boots, but since the children are little the sandals can symbolic boots. The next line involves mother's laboring in the morning. The tone very negative in the line, since the mothers have to use up their mornings working. The next line says that the mothers were gathering red and gold apples; this seems to show that the mothers are laboring very hard to provide a tribute or a sacrifice of apples. Next, the poem says that the gathering of the apples were like words of a different language, so that can be interpreted as the mothers are gathering the apples in a way that is foreign and different from the usual feelings associated with gathering apples. By laboring all morning for the red and gold apples, the gathering of apples on this day is on a different occasion than the norm, since usually mothers would never have to labor all morning for something so trivial as gathering some apples. The next three lines mention that on the other side where the children are at they hang their overcoats over yellow or blue wood. The second line ended with the children hang, so it seems very negative and grim, but the very next line mentions that they were just hanging their overcoats on colorful wood. The red wood can symbolize passion, love, or anger, while the yellow wood can symbolize joy and cheerfulness. Also, due to the fact that the children hung their overcoats can symbolize that the season is winter or late fall. Furthermore, the next line starts off with the teachers instruct the kids in silence; this can symbolize that the teachers are a kind of parental figure, since they instruct their children, which is what parents do. In addition, since the children are instructed in silence, it further shows that the teachers are symbolic of parents, since parents also do want children to pay attention while instructing them. The next line starts off with the mothers trying to scour the orchards for a way out, which can symbolize that the mothers are at the teachers mercy, since they have control over the children. Furthermore, the next line says that the mothers draw themselves the gray limbs of the fruit tree, so it symbolizes that the mothers were trying to find apples to offer as tribute to the teachers. But the final line says that the trees bear little ammunition, which symbolizes that the teachers demand something in exchange for their teachings and that the apples are "ammunition" that will cause the teachers to do well for the children.

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