The School Children Louise Gluck Analysis

In the poem titled “The School Children” by Louise Gluck, the author utilizes an industrious tone and the symbol of the apple to establish the understanding that it is hard to maintain individuality in a society where one is expected to conform to the masses. Continuing to conform can only lead to a loss of one’s sense of self. In the first line of the poem, the speaker states, “The children go forward with their little satchels” (Gluck). The term “satchels” is used in this line and is a small bag that usually comes with a shoulder strap. Connotatively, a satchel is something used for more professional purposes, which contradicts the way one would describe children. The speaker specifically said satchel, rather than a backpack or simply a bag which compares the children to professionals rather than young kids. By using the term satchel
The speaker furthers this idea when they state, “the teachers shall instruct them in silence” (Gluck). By stating that the teachers “instruct in silence,” it seems that the teachers are teaching the children to be quiet and compliant. The term “silence” means an absence of sound. Connotatively, the word is equated with emptiness. Silence is not a word one would generally associate with children because children tend to lively and loud by nature. In this case, the education system is teaching children to act and be a certain way rather than who they are by nature. The teachers are their to instruct them on how to be quiet or “silent.” As a result, the children are separated from their sense of individuality and their sense of self because they are being taught to all act the same way; they are taught to be silent. Lastly, the speaker states, “The mothers shall scour the orchards...drawing to themselves the gray limbs of fruit trees bearing so little ammunition”