The Happiest Days of Your Life - Essay

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The story “The happiest days of your life” written by Penelope Lively is about how children's relationship are with their parents in the 20th century in England and which social class your in. The main character in the story is a boy named Charles. His wealthy parents want him in a preschool because they mean that he should follow their footsteps, but it’s hard for Charles to accept his parent choice. They are in a red brick building school, early nineteenth century, spreading out long arms in which windows glittered blackly. Flowers, trapped in neat beds, were alternate red and white. The boy Charles is vulnerable, insecure, dazed, timid and inhibited. He doesn’t really say any-thing in the text, every time when someone asks a question or just say something to him. He doesn’t responds back. He has black hair and large ears. His clothes have the shine and crease of newness. The parents are very annoying, ambitious, class-conscious and superficial. The mother is very snobbish and very keen on mixing with the richest of people. You can see that in her reaction when the headmaster’s wife asks if they live in Finchley. The mother doesn't like the wife be-cause that remark. She is not so concerned about her child, and she is patronizing him with a very high pitchy voice for example “He looks so hideously pale, compared to those boys we saw outside” her tone is very cold and in an evil way. The father is obviously sends his child away because it can give him great business contacts. The headmaster and his wife are authoritative, confident, detached and well mannered. The wife can be kind and at the same time cold. The headmaster is a perfectionist, you can see that the way he looks for example “His clothes were mature rather than old, his skin well scrubbed, his shoes clean, his geniality untainted by the least condescension". The boys are inquisitive,
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