Education As Seen Through Literature

Several characters in the literature show us with powerful realism the importance of education, and show that education is much more than going to school. Characters in Mark Mathabane’s Kaffir Boy, Richard Wright’s Black Boy, Helen Keller’s Autobiography, and Anton Chekhov’s “The Bet” all undergo various styles of education and reap different personal benefits.

            In Kaffir Boy, education is the sole means of escaping the streets and gang life. Only through education can a young boy break the cycle of gang and domestic violence, and make a new life for himself not burdened by poverty. In the beginning of the story the protagonist idolizes the gang boys, homeless, violent, and drug addicted thugs: ” These boys had long left their homes and were now living in various neighborhood junkyards, making it on their own. They slept in abandoned cars, smoked glue and benzene, ate pilchards and brown bread”. He is “captivated” by their life and wants to be one of them and their “adventurous” lives.

He cannot see the hopelessness of their way of existence. But while his mother is dragging him to school they meet a woman in the street who changes his mind with her sad story : “He shunned school and, instead, grew to live by the knife. And the same knife he lived by ended his life. That’s why whenever I see a boy-child refuse to go to school, I stop and tell the story of my dear little mbitsini [heartbreak]”.

Her story confuses him and opens his eyes to the possible outcome of his gang life: “But the thought of the strange woman’s lamentations over her dead son presented a somewhat strong case for going to school: I didn’t want to end up dead in the streets.” Suddenly he realizes that the violence surrounding him can be prevented by education.  But his mother explains the clearest argument for going to school: “School is the only means to a future. I don’t want you growing up to be like your father. “. It becomes clear to the protagonist that an education is the only way to break out of the gang life, poverty and domestic violence. It is the only way to rise above a violent past.

            In Black Boy, Richard Wright demonstrates how education can help us more deeply understand our own lives and realities. The protagonist in “Black Boy” is continuously relating what he reads and learns to his own life: ” Why would a man want to call a book Prejudices? The word was so stained with all my memories of racial hate that I could not conceive of anybody using it for a title. Perhaps I had made a mistake about Mencken?”. He looks at his books as if in a mirror, reflecting and relating everything he reads to his own life. It is the best way for him to understand both the books and his existence: ” I now felt that I knew what the white men were feeling.

Merely because I had read a book that had spoken of how they lived and thought, I identified myself with that book”. His books bring him closer to understanding whites, letting him inside their world more than he has ever gone before. His daily life becomes less removed from the world: ” I had always felt a vast distance separating me from the boss, and now I felt closer to him, though still distant. I felt now that I knew him, that I could feel the very limits of his narrow life”. For this protagonist, education is a way of breaking down the barriers of racism, of bringing the two races closer to understanding each other.

            The Autobiography of Helen Keller reveals the importance of education in relating to the world and the people around us, and demonstrates that it is the only way to fully live life. In the beginning of the story Helen is “dumb, expectant”. She has lived in silence, unable to make herself understood, her whole life: ” Anger and bitterness had preyed upon me continuously for weeks and a deep languor had succeeded this passionate struggle”. She has almost given up all hope for a fulfilling life. But her teacher saves her : ” I was caught up and held close in the arms of her who had come to reveal all things to me, and, more than all things else, to love me”.

Anne reveals the world to Helen, opening up innumerable possibilities and emotions and enabling her to embrace life. Helen begins to feel as she begins to learn: ” On entering the door I remembered the doll I had broken. I felt my way to the hearth and picked up the pieces.  I tried vainly to put them together. Then my eyes filled with tears; for I realized what I had done, and for the first time felt repentance and sorrow”. While Helen is mute and unable to communicate, she cannot feel anything- happiness or regret. As she becomes able to relate to the world, she begins to fully feel all normal emotions and can be happy : “The living world awakened my soul, gave it light, hope, joy, set it free!”. Without her education Helen would have remained mute and half -alive. Her learning literally saves her life.

            Anton Chekhov’s “The Bet” shows us how education is best when used actively instead of simply absorbed passively. The lawyer spends his time in imprisonment reading every type of book he can get. He reads novels “principally of a light character”, books on “languages, philosophy and history” then moves onto the Gospels and “theology and histories of religion” finally ending with sciences and Shakespeare. His reading is almost indiscriminate: ” His reading suggested a man swimming in the sea among the wreckage of his ship and trying to save his life by greedily clutching first at one spar and then at another”. His is literally drowning in his isolation and education is the means of keeping himself afloat. But his education plunges him into a pit of depression: ” And I despise your books, I despise wisdom and the blessings of this world.

It is all worthless, fleeting, illusory, and deceptive, like a mirage”. He becomes disenchanted with a world he has only seen through books. He has had no chance to examine the real world to see how it compares to his readings. He still has no accurate idea of life and thus aims for the ideal-heaven. His education leaves him exhausted and cerebral: “I marvel at you who exchange heaven for earth. I don’t want to understand you”. He wants only to die because he does not have the strength to face the terrors of the world he read about.

            These four very different pieces of literature all describe the importance of education. In each story, education has a very personal and individual meaning for the protagonist. In Kaffir Boy, education is the means of escape from a violent, poverty-ridden life. In Black Boy, education helps tear down racial barriers and leads a young black man to a deeper understanding of his own life.

For Helen Keller education is the force that saves and shapes her life. Her teacher enables her to connect with the world and finally feel emotion other than frustration. The lawyer in “The Bet” uses education as an opiate to while away the hours in prison but finally becomes disenchanted with the world in his books. He demonstrates that education is best when used to live a life instead of just absorbed and discarded. All four excerpts describe the power of education and the possible results that it can enable.

                                                            References

Chekhov, Anton. (1986). “The Bet”. New York: Penguin Books.

Keller, Helen. (1909). The Autobiography of Helen Keller. UK: Hodder and Stoughton.

Mathabane, Mark. (1986). Kaffir Boy. New York : Simon & Schuster.

Wright, Richard. (1945) . Black Boy. New York: Harper Collins.