The School Donald Barthelge Analysis

In The School by Donald Barthelme, it’s a humorous yet dark story about things that happen in school. The theme of the story is about death and to some extent responsibility. The story gives several types of human emotions and expression of death. The story is narrated by Edgar, the teacher, he talks about everything that is happening in his class specifically having to deal with death. Edgar explains the death of my things and doesn’t seem to care about them happening, he’s more curious and focus about death in general. For most people it is their desire to know what comes after death, that is what Barthelme is writing about in this story. He wants to show how people see death, yet they don’t have an explanation to it. The introduction paragraph, Barthelme

Edgar talks about herbs, fishes, and small animals that had also died in the class. From that list, readers would know that they don’t live for very long, so it isn’t too much of a shock to them. That what Barthelme wanted to set up with that, he wanted to give readers those death, so they can prepare them for other ones. By now the deaths seem normal for the most part, most of them had the same reasoning. Edgar then says, “We weren’t supposed to have a puppy.” (Barthelme). At this point, Barthelme put this in, because he knew it would grab people’s attention and it tells that Edgar wasn’t supposed to have these things in the classroom. Barthelme wants the readers to freak out about it, because it’s a puppy, everyone can already guess what will happen, yet they still will be in shock. By now, the readers know it is normal for the deaths to occur and so does Edgar. Edgar already planned on how to hide it from the kids. Barthelme wants people to know that anything can happen. He’s getting into people’s comfort zone, he knows a puppy would be the way to get to a reader’s