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Analysis to Sir, with Love

In: English and Literature

Submitted By AlinaFrame
Words 1502
Pages 7
Analysis of the text “To Sir, with love”
By Eustace Braithwaite

The text I’m going to comment on is entitled “To Sir, with love”, written by Eustace Braithwaite, a Guyanese novelist, writer, teacher and diplomat, best known for his stories of social conditions and racial discrimination. The passage under study is an excerpt from hid well-known novel “To Sir, with love”, that is an excellent autobiographical work, as it is based on his personal experience of teaching at a school in London’s East End. First, I would like to speak about the title of the text, because very often it can give you a hint about the content of the text. In this very case the first thought that came to my mind was that in the text may be a sir that receives a letter from somebody who loves him. After the first lecture of the text, I realized I wasn’t quite right, just partially right. Speaking about the structure of the title, I can say that it is expressed in a syntagm consisting of elements from human reality (sir) and from the spiritual one (love). The title has an expressive function, for it is realized by means of intention and emotionality. Also, it has a positive emotional status. The text tells the story of a teacher who came in a school in which every Friday morning the pupils were writing a Weekly Review – the headmaster’s pet scheme. The children were free to comment and criticize anything, as long as it was somehow linked with the school. The headmaster found advantages in that scheme, both for pupils and for teachers. He said that the children would improve their written English, while the teachers would have the possibility to observe the trend of interest and to plan their work accordingly. The new teacher read several reviews and was very disappointed to find out that very little attention was given to him, apart from mentioning that they had a new “blackie”

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