The School Essay

Samuel Saenz

September 27, 2017

1320.041

School of Life

In life there can be strings of bad luck that we experience from time to time. No one knows why these runs of bad luck happen or what causes them to happen to us when they do. When telling a story about these events, it must be done with intent to appeal to the emotions of the reader. Donald Barthelme writes his story in a very dark yet uses an odd sense of humor to represent the underlying themes of the story. Barthelme appeals to the emotions of the reader with escalation from nonchalant deaths to a serious tone shift with discussing a human death in the later half of the story. These tone shifts and use of humor and escalation are used to set up the philosophical meaning of life and death that is a major theme to the story.

The author used humor in a very unique way throughout the story. Donald Barthelme does not use humor in the typical way we would view something humorous, instead he uses humor to elevate a theme behind the story. Barthelme first explains how all the students had their trees die and no one could really explain why. Barthelme then proceeds to tell us a series of unfortunate events that happen to the children at the school. This is where an odd sense of humor is displayed in the story. The events are preposterous in the way they that all happen simultaneously and Edgar understates each situation as something that normally happens.  While the events in the story are from normal its Edgar’s delivery that makes the way he tells the story humorous. Edgar states in the story that the events were “just a run of bad luck” (Barthelme 306). Edgar talks about these events like they aren’t so unusual and this results in a humorous delivery.

Donald Barthelme has an underlying theme in this story about life and death and what they mean too young children, he brings this to life in the story with tone shifts. As stated before, Barthelme uses humor to draw the reader in and then uses tone shifts to get to his major theme. The beginning of the story is filled with unfortunate events that are talked about nonchalantly and it isn’t until Edgar states, “And then there was this Korean Orphan….” (Barthelme 305) That we see a serious tone used in this story. When talking about deaths of plants and animals Barthelme uses dark humor to tone down the seriousness of the events but when a human is brought into the story that a drastically different tone is present. The first insertion of human fatalities by Barthelme then leads to discussion about other human fatalities in the story. This tone shift sets up the eventual philosophical question of the meaning and value of life and death. Barthelme uses the tone shift to a serious tone to expose the reader to the emotions that the kids in the school are feeling. The children state, “Is death what gives meaning to life?” (Barthelme 306) Everything around the kids seems to be dying and they are struggling to see the upside or value of living. This is a huge transition form the humor we discussed that was used in the beginning of the story about plants and animals. The reader is now filled with shared emotions that the children have, the tone shift allows the reader to face death like the children have throughout the story. This allows for Barthelme to let the reader relate with the kids and their desire for the opposition of death, this is why they search for the value of life.

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