D. H. Lawrence’s “Afternoon in School: The Last Lesson”

D. H. Lawrence’s “Afternoon in School: The Last Lesson”

In D. H. Lawrence’s “Afternoon in School: The Last Lesson,” an educator is dramatizing the lackluster performance of the students in the classroom. The teacher’s strength is being sapped by many vain attempts to teach pupils who refuse to learn.

Introduction with Text of “Afternoon in School: The Last Lesson”

D. H. Lawrence’s published collection titled Love Poems includes the poem, “Afternoon in School: The Last Lesson,” in the section labeled “The Schoolmaster.” Two other sections of the collection are “Love Poems” and “Dialect Poems.” The collection of poems, published in New York by Mitchell Kinerley, appeared in 1915.

Rime Scheme

D. H. Lawrence’s “Afternoon in School: The Last Lesson” contains a handful of rimes scattered throughout the piece. These rimes seem to occur accidentally, and therefore, do not rise to the status of an actual “rime scheme.” These seemingly random rimes, however, do play well in suggesting the level ennui of the teacher.

Alliteration

In the first stanza of D. H. Lawrence’s “Afternoon in School: The Last Lesson,” the following lines feature what upon first impression might be considered “alliteration.” The initial consonants are capitalized, bolded, and italicized for easy recognition:

Line 1: When Will the bell ring, and end this Weariness?
Lines 4 and 5: they Hate to Hunt, / I can Haul them
Lines 6 and 7: to Bearthe Brunt / Of the Books
Lines 7, 8, and 9: Score / Of Several insults of blotted pages and Scrawl / Of Slovenly
Line 11: Woodstacks Working Weariedly

Even though those lines feature repetition of initial consonantal sounds, the poetic purpose for the use of alliteration is not fulfilled in any of those consonant groups, and therefore that true poetic alliteration is not actually employed in this poem.

Poets and other creative writers employ “alliteration” in both poetry and prose to create a musically rhythmic sound. Alliterative sound renders the flow of words a beauty which attracts the auditory nerves making the language both more enjoyable and more easily remembered.

None of this poetic purpose is fulfilled in Lawrence’s lines with the assumed alliteration, especially lines 4–5, 6–7, and 7–8–9, which spill over onto the next line, thus separating the alliterative group.

The Six-Stanza Draft of This Poem

An earlier draft of Lawrence’s “Afternoon in School: The Last Lesson” featuring six stanzas appears on some internet sites. The six-stanza version is far inferior to the masterfully revised two-stanza version, which is the focus of this commentary.

Readers who encounter that earlier six-stanza draft should compare it to the two-stanza, revised version. They will then understand that the revised two-stanza version is more polished, succinct, and includes the useful metaphor of likening the soul to embers of a fire.

Afternoon in School: The Last Lesson

When will the bell ring, and end this weariness?
How long have they tugged the leash, and strained apart
My pack of unruly hounds: I cannot start
Them again on a quarry of knowledge they hate to hunt,
I can haul them and urge them no more.
No more can I endure to bear the brunt
Of the books that lie out on the desks: a full three score
Of several insults of blotted pages and scrawl
Of slovenly work that they have offered me.
I am sick, and tired more than any thrall
Upon the woodstacks working weariedly.

And shall I take
The last dear fuel and heap it on my soul
Till I rouse my will like a fire to consume
Their dross of indifference, and burn the scroll
Of their insults in punishment? – I will not!
I will not waste myself to embers for them,
Not all for them shall the fires of my life be hot,
For myself a heap of ashes of weariness, till sleep
Shall have raked the embers clear: I will keep
Some of my strength for myself, for if I should sell
It all for them, I should hate them –
– I will sit and wait for the bell.

Reading of “Afternoon in School: The Last Lesson”

Commentary on “Afternoon in School: The Last Lesson”

The bored and labor-weary instructor in “Last Lesson of the Afternoon” is dramatizing the fatigue that has resulted from trying to teach lackluster pupils who resist learning. He, thus, makes a vow to himself that he will simply stop the punishing of his own soul; he will stop wasting his time and effort, trying to teach those who do not want to learn.

First Stanza: Student Dogs

The drama played out in this poem begins and concludes with the teacher asserting that he will simply sit and wait for the bell to ring—in a sense, he is likening his own behavior to his uninspired pupils.

The speaker metaphorically compares his lackluster students to dogs that pull hard and attempt to wrench free from a leash. The students resist his attempt to teach them; thus, the dog metaphor describes their behavior. They have no desire to learn, and the teacher thus has no desire to continue trying to instruct them.

He has arrived at the notion that he can no longer in good faith continue this farce of teaching and learning that is not taking place. He wishes to free himself from the same situation that he thinks his students are undergoing.

Apparently, this teacher does not possess the patience and love of the young required for working with students. He has become too weary, and he holds no empathy for these students who continue to turn in “slovenly work.”

He has come to loathe the job of having to correct the many badly written papers that confront him time and time again. He has become bone tired, and he complains that the whole situation serves neither him nor his students.

The teacher then declares that it does not matter if they are able to write about what they lack interest in anyway. He finds the situation pointless. Bitterly, he complains repeatedly about the ultimate purpose of all this useless activity.

Second Stanza: Unjustified Expenditure of Energy

The teacher then assumes that even if he commits all of his energy and efforts to these students, he cannot justify to himself the expenditure of his energy. His soul is being wasted and tortured in attempting to teach the unteachable. He senses that he is being insulted by the students’ lack of motivation and desire to achieve.

He has determined that there is no value in struggling to impart knowledge to a bunch of seemingly braindead urchins who possess not a shred of desire to acquire an education. This teacher proclaims his intention to stop using up his soul power in vain attempts to teach these recalcitrant unteachables.

The speaker/teacher looks fate in the eye and finds that no matter what he does and no matter what they do, it all goes down to the same nothingness. Whether he teaches or not, it does not matter. Whether they learn or not, it does not matter.

The weary teacher likens his life to “embers” of a fire that is slowly burning out; he insists that he will not allow himself to become a simple ash heap from burning himself out while attempting to accomplish the impossible. If sleep will rake the embers clear, he will, instead, save his energy for more worthwhile activities that will actually enhance his life, instead of draining it of vitality.

He implies that as a teacher, he is obligated to assume responsibly with all his strength, but by doing so, he wastes himself on a futile mission. Thus, he makes a vow to himself to cease this purposeless activity. Nothing he does can influence these poor souls, so why, he asks himself, should he continue to attempt it? Why torture himself as he also tortures the undeliverable?

The speaker/teacher can no longer care, if, in fact, he ever did. He feels that the effort is not worth it. He must move on. Vaguely yet surely, he is implying that teachers are born, not made. The disgruntled teacher has arrived at his perfect, liberating thought: like the students who resist learning, he has become the teacher who will resist teaching.

He will “sit and wait for the bell,” just as his students are doing. If they do not want to learn, then he concludes, why should he want to teach? He has finished with wasting his efforts on a futile activity.

The struggle between the unwilling students and the unenthusiastic teacher ends in a something of a stalemate. The image of them both sitting and waiting for the bell to ring signals a sad scenario of soulless sterility.

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