Essay Questions

Is this statement, ‘The luminosity shed by knowledge benighted minds,’ by Patrick Chamoiseau metaphorical?

The author uses this statement metaphorically to mean that the kids seated in the classroom before the tutor are providential to be taught in a communal learning establishment. Therefore, the pupils must do whatever they can to ensure that they do not fritter away such an excellent opportunity. Conversely, the pupils seem not to figure out what the teacher is saying because he is using a multifaceted idiom. He does not figure out why all the children in his class are disenchanted. Therefore, it is true that Patrick Chamoiseau applies the statement, ‘The luminosity shed by knowledge benighted minds,’ metaphorically in his book School Days.

Explain how the predicament of learning contributes to low-esteem among students who are not brighter in schools.

Throughout the story School Days, the reader can see that the early learning system is a predicament because of isolation. For instance, class sittings are arranged based on the intellectual capacity of pupils and the social setting. Those students perceived as more intelligent are given a chance of sitting at the frontage line while those who are not bright are given back seats. The irony is that the perceived intelligent pupils are not as smart as postulated. They are just from well off families and are able to exhibit the Persian manners. Therefore, those students from poor backgrounds who cannot behave as Persians are discriminated and this greatly lowers their sense of worth. To add a hot nail on an injury, teachers disgrace those pupils who have difficulty in answering questions making them more vulnerable.

Do you agree with the narrator when he says, “The underside line: the narrative is reclining only if you inform it defectively”?

Using the character of the little boy, Patrick Chamoiseau is defensible to state that a story is a lie if one tells it incorrectly. At some point, the little boy starts reporting home late than his usual custom because after school he goes to play with his friends. Scared that his mother is going to question his lateness, he becomes creative and starts to lie that the teacher takes longer hours teaching than usual and that is why he's late. Later on, his mother starts to doubt his lies because he uses similar excuses now and again whenever he is late. To convince his mother, he concocts creative stories to tell to his mother. Coincidentally, the mother buys into his imagination and there is no single day she fails to accept the reasons for her son's lateness. Therefore, it dawns on the boy that any story can be only a lie if it is reported incorrectly.