The Happiest Days of Your Life

594 Words3 Pages
The happiest days of your life The happiest days of your life is written by Penelope Lively in 1978. The story is about a younger boy called Charles and his parents driving to a new school called Edward’s Preparatory School to see if he like it and want to attend. They are welcomed by the headmaster’s wife, Mary and after a little while the headmaster arrives. He is talking to the parents while Mary takes Charles off to meet some of the other boys who goes there. She leaves him with the boys who is asking a lot of questions and Charles feels very uncomfortable about the whole situation. Afterwards the parents and Charles leaves. The title of the story could mean two different things. The first one could be that the parents are very glad and excited with the decision about the preparatory school, because there is a lot of prestige if you go there and it would probably do well for their image. The other one is meant in a sarcastic way, because Charles will probably experience the worst day of his life. The story is wrtitten in 3rd person limited omniscient narrator. ’’A bell goes, somewhere beyond doors and down corridors, and suddenly the children are all gone, clattering away and leaving him there with the heaving floor and the walls that shift and swing.’’ (p. 65 l. 7-10). A non-omniscient 3rd person narrator would never be able to tell how Charles is feeling, how the floor is shaking and the walls are moving. Charles knows that he is going to get bullied as soon as he starts at the new school, which is not objective either. ‘’Next term, we’ll mash you...’’(p. 65 l. 25-32). Charles gets really scared of the other boys but he do not mention anything about it to his parents, probably because he will no disappoint them. The story takes place in Sussex, which is a very wealthy city, in South England at The St. Edward’s Preparatory School and in the car
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