Language and Silence

Throughout Patrick Chamoiseau’s School Days’s language plays a crucial role in the development of the narrator and supporting characters like Big Bellybutton and the Teacher. In young Patrick’s life language becomes both something he loves and cherishes and something to be feared. Language is able to inspire him to enjoy reading and try to learn to read new things but it also acts as a form of domination by the Teacher to make the children feel inadequate.

From the very first time we see the Teacher he mocks the children’s way of speech, as Chamoiseau put it “The Teacher, merciless, would zero in on them: I beg your pardon?”(36). This is young Patrick’s first experience being judged for his manner of speaking and it terrifies him into silence almost immediately. When it is his turn to be called upon he can barely get the word “present” out before sitting down quickly and trying his hardest to remain unnoticed. From this moment onwards Chamoiseau notices the Teacher judging and oppressing the students based on the way they talk. He likes the “Fresh-From-France” who could “proudly rise and rattle off the proper accent” (62) and despises the natural Creole speakers. Their forms of speech label them in the Teacher’s eyes as either intelligent or an imbecile. In the case of Big Bellybutton who is incredibly good at math and numbers, the Teacher refuses to call on him in these instances already having labeled him as incompetent. Chamoiseau also points out that the kids the Teacher liked were not ridiculed for wrong answers, merely thought to be having an off day or having heard the question wrong while the others were immediately jumped upon for their mistakes. This entire behavior by the Teacher creates a hierarchy of students that are being labeled simply for their ability to speak and not at all by their behavior, further oppressing students who probably need more help and nurturing those who may have been able to learn on their own.

These practices created an atmosphere of fear in the classroom and an atmosphere of silence. It killed the language the boys had grown up with a language filled with meaning for them.  Young Patrick was silenced in all his creative ways, even at home he stopped being the bubbly little boy he once was and became withdrawn. He could no longer express himself because he did not understand French and could not speak in Creole. “Baffled, the little black boy realized that he did not know this language. The chatty li'l voice in his head used a different language, his home-language, his Mama-language, the language he had not learned but rather absorbed with ease as he eagerly explored his world” (48). The language he cherished the one that took him on adventures and helped him to understand the world was taken away from him. Language is such an important part of childhood development it is what first allows us to put names on the world to understand things previously kept from us.  When this is taken from Chamoiseau he is affectively crushed by his lack of ability to understand the world the way that is deemed ‘correct’ by the Teacher. Similarly Big Bellybutton who was once eager to learn and loved numbers slowly loses his bouncy nature and becomes resigned to being what the Teacher thinks he is.

This is a major problem is public schools in America even today. Children are told from a young age that they are less capable either because of race, or behavioral issues, or learning differences. These children who enter the school system full of life and ready to learn and grow are beaten down and eventually many succumb to the low expectations put upon them. There have been numerous cases of children who are told they are stupid or lazy over and over eventually accepting this idea of themselves and giving up on school. The kid who then missed one or two assignment starts to never do work and the kid who learns differently starts to disregard work and then falls into a cycle of never learning. It is just fascinating how this book written in another language, at another time, in another place, so accurately describes a problem that American schools face every day because of bad teachers and un-bending curriculum. It just shows that what we may think of as a terrible ‘third-world problem’ is actually a lot closer to home that we may realize.