The Happiest Days of Your Life - Penelope Lively

870 Words4 Pages
Penelope Lively’s “The Happiest Days of Your Life” tells the story of young Charles who silently suffers the consequences of his parents’ neglect of properly taking care of him. The young boy is at a point where he is trying to find a preparatory school for him, and he and his parents visit a well-reputed school that may not be as good after all. His unconfident and shy nature leads to an anticlimactic culmination which is ultimately because of the parents’ lack of attention during Charles’ entire childhood. Charles is approximately 7 years old seeing as he is going to find a preparatory school. He is a shy boy who very rarely speaks. In fact, he does not say one word during the entire story. Charles lacks courage which is evident in the end of the story where he simply doesn’t dare tell his parents exactly what he thinks about the school and how he definitely doesn’t want to attend it after having heard the fright-inducing words from one of the students there: “Next term, we’ll mash you…” In the beginning of the story, he is sitting in a car with an unopened box of chocolate next to him. This could symbolize the boy’s lack of liveliness and his dissatisfaction with the whole situation. Charles’ introvert personality is likely to be the consequence of inattentiveness from his parents during his entire upbringing. During the story, the parents seem to be a lot more interested in what the school is able to offer them rather than what it is able to offer Charles. Whenever they’re walking around the school looking at the facilities, the reader is always left with the notion that they don’t really care about what Charles thinks about it. When they are walking up the steps, the boy is left two paces behind, and we also find the father talking about what kind of business connections the school might bring them. When Charles is finally asked about his thoughts of the

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