Analyse af Penelope Livelys 'The Happiest Day of Your Life'

The happiest day of your life is a short story written by Penelope Lively. The story is about the wealthy Manders family. The family visits the popular boarding school St Edward´s Preparatory School, to decide if they want their son Charles to study there.

The parents are very excited to visit the school but Charles is very quiet and does not seem like he wants to study at St Edward´s Preparatory School. Especially not after his experience with the other students

We get a very detailed description of the setting. It makes us feel like we are in the story experiencing and seeing what the Manders family is experiencing and seeing.

I think the Manders family is a happy family, but sometimes I think the parents forgets about their child because they want everything to look perfect. They want Charles to go to an expensive school, but I don’t think that Charles really wants to study at St Edward´s Preparatory School.

PEE:

The parents doesn’t care about Charles opinion about what he thinks about the school. They are the ones who is choosing if it’s the right school or not.

I Can see that because Charles is very quiet in almost the whole story. We don’t hear any of Charles opinions, we only hear what the parent think about the school. The parents also almost forget about Charles: “And this is Charles? My dear, we’ve been forgetting all about you” (p. 4)