Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Old School, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Honesty and Honor
Identity and Belonging
The Power of Literature
Competition, Masculinity, and Pride
Education, Failure, and Growth
Summary
Analysis
It’s November of 1960, a week after the presidential race between Nixon and Kennedy. The boys at the school love Kennedy, because he is “roguish and literate,” his clothes are sharp, and his wife is attractive. The unnamed narrator says that if Nixon attended their school, the boys would glue his shoes to the floor. The boys don’t admit that class plays a part in their liking for Kennedy: the narrator explains that the school tries not to be snobbish. Scholarship students can declare themselves or not, and any boys who gain a leg up from their famous names are quickly assessed by the merits they earn at the school.
Old School’s opening anecdote sets the stage for many of the conflicts between the boys over the course of this school year. First, beginning with a competition (the presidential race) foreshadows the key role that competition will play in the boys’ lives at the school. And by noting what they like about Kennedy, the narrator illustrates the emphasis that the boys place on being able to be with an attractive girl, be perceived as both mischievous and smart, and belong to an elite class. While the school doesn’t like to admit that it gives preferential treatment based on class, the narrator implies that class nevertheless plays a big part in a person’s identity at the school.
Themes
The school takes pride in being a “literary place.” The headmaster studied with Robert Frost; Dean Makepeace was a friend of Ernest Hemingway’s during World War I; and the boys look up to the English teachers in particular. These teachers are skilled at dissecting literature to make it personally relevant to the boys.
Here, the narrator establishes that writing is an important part of the school’s culture. The fact that the boys look up to teachers who can make literature personally relevant to them implies that the most powerful part of literature lies in its ability to affect readers personally.
Themes
Famous writers visit the school three times a year, and there is a tradition at the school in which one boy is granted a private audience with the visiting writer. They compete for this honor by submitting a story or poem, and the visiting writer chooses the winner. The story or poem is also published in the school newspaper. Only boys in their sixth-form (final) year at school are allowed to compete. The narrator watched for three years as other boys were selected—it was particularly hard when the winning piece was written by someone he didn’t like, or a boy who wasn’t even known for writing.
While the contest is really meant to give boys the opportunity to meet with a famous writer, it also sets up a competition among the boys in a way that makes winning a point of pride among them. This is why the narrator is so frustrated when a boy he doesn’t like wins, or a boy who doesn’t have a literary background, because the competition is a way for the boys to distinguish themselves as superior.
Themes
The boys care deeply about the contest, and the narrator cares particularly because he knows that many writers are often mentored by other writers. For example, Fitzgerald, Pound, Gertrude Stein all mentored Ernest Hemingway. He wants to forge that same relationship with another writer—for someone established to pick him out of the crowd and “anoint” him.
The narrator reinforces how the contest is a way of being marked as superior among his classmates, which ties into literature’s importance to the school as well. The word “anoint” means to spread with oil, especially in the context of a religious ceremony. By using a word with a strong religious connotation, the narrator implies that he would be made holy or divine in being chosen by a fellow writer.
Themes
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That fall, poet Robert Frost is visiting the school, and so the competition requires that the boys each write a poem. One of the narrator’s primary competitors is George Kellogg, the editor of the school’s literary review, Troubadour. The narrator wanted the editorship and lost it by a single vote, which left him with the title of director of publication. It was a loss, but he knew George had worked harder to earn the position.
The narrator references another competition in which he had taken part: that of vying for the literary review editorship. Even though he recognizes that George worked harder for the honor, losing still hurt his pride, especially because writing is such an important aspect of his identity and so integral to the school.
Themes
George is a proficient poet; he writes in traditional forms, often about loneliness. His poems always have a theme and use alliteration and personification and metonymy, but the narrator thinks George’s work is often boring. The narrator relays that he doesn’t really think George can win. George is also too nice—at their editorial meetings for Troubadour he argues for every submission, even though he knows that they can’t publish them all. This kindness makes his writing toothless, the narrator thinks. The narrator idolizes Ernest Hemingway, and the narrator aspires to be as great a writer as Hemingway is.
The boys clearly take care to write poetry that uses literary devices, as the narrator lists the various devices that George uses in his poetry. Still, the narrator’s characterization of George’s poetry as boring emphasizes that the most important part of writing is the effect that it has on the reader. Without holding interest, the proficiency of the writing is irrelevant. The narrator’s comparison of George and Ernest Hemingway reinforces this point, as Hemingway is known for plain but incisive and sharp prose.
Themes
Bill White, the narrator’s roommate, could also win, as Bill has already written most of a novel. Bill has bright green eyes, pale skin, and plays varsity squash. The narrator learned the previous year that Bill was Jewish after meeting Bill’s father, who often talked about their Jewish family. The narrator had roomed with Bill for two years and never knew: they get along well but aren’t truly friends. The narrator also wonders if Bill meant to seem not Jewish, and the narrator implies that he, too, hides the Jewish part of his own identity.
Here, the narrator introduces his concern surrounding his identity, which causes him to hide parts of himself like his Jewish background. He recognizes that he is being deceptive, and he starts to wonder if others are as deceptive as he is. The irony is that trying to hide his identity in order to fit in only creates distance between him and Bill, whereas if he revealed the heritage they had in common, it might bond them further.
Themes
Bill is a contender: his stories and poems are eventful and full of good detail. Jeff Purcell—“Little Jeff”—is also a contender. He is nicknamed this way because he has a cousin who attends the school that is also named Jeff Purcell, whom they call “Big Jeff” despite the fact that he’s not much bigger than Little Jeff. Little Jeff is the narrator’s friend, and he hates this nickname, so the narrator calls him Purcell instead. Purcell is also on the editorial board of the Troubadour, and he is very critical. He comes from a wealthy family and often writes about class inequality.
The nicknames of the two Jeff Purcells illustrate how even small qualities the boys possess can set up competitions and social hierarchies among them. Purcell’s dislike of his name stems from hurt pride, as he seems to view the denotation of “little” as a mark of inferiority. Additionally, the narrator continues to emphasize how much class plays into the boys’ identity at the school, despite their desire to believe that class is relatively unimportant to them.
Themes
All of the boys write in someone’s literary legacy—usually Hemingway or Cummings or Kerouac. They often imitate their favorite writers, if unintentionally. They never criticize each other for these imitations, because they all do it. The narrator also describes how so much of their desire to write stems from the fact that they do not have girls to compete for. Thus, every other prize becomes “feminized,” like honors in sport, scholarship, music, and writing.
Famous writers become so important to the students that the works that impact them even affect their own writing styles. In addition, the narrator’s description of prizes as “feminized” emphasizes that winning competitions is not only a marker of pride, but also becomes a proxy for proving their masculine dominance or even sexual prowess in an all-boys school.
Themes
Another aspect of the boys’ lives in school is class, which is obvious based on each boy’s clothes, summer activities, and sports. The narrator understands these differences instinctively, noting that other boys have a natural ease that stems from their wealth. Still, their differences often go unspoken in the school because it prides itself on trying to equalize the boys inside its walls.
Again, the narrator presents a contradiction at the school regarding class. While the school tries to equalize the boys, it is clear that the narrator notices the difference between himself and the other boys. For this reason, the narrator tries to obscure his identity in order to fit in with the other boys. In a way, this is an equalizer, since the narrator is trying to align himself with his peers.
Themes
The narrator then tells a story about an early incident at the school. The summer before he enrolled, the narrator worked as a dishwasher at a YMCA camp, and the chef in the kitchen, Hartmut, loved to whistle. Five or six weeks after arriving at the school, the narrator is walking behind Gershon, one of the school handymen, on the stairs. He stars whistling one of Hartmut’s tunes out of happiness at being at the school. Gershon slows, and the narrator keeps pace a few steps behind. Gershon slows even more, and the narrator slows as well to be polite. Then Gershon turns on the narrator and angrily asks for his name.
The narrator’s summer job proves his earlier assertion that one can tell a boy’s class by his summer activities. While other boys go on vacations, the narrator’s modest background means that he has to work instead. His happiness at being at the school also hints at his less privileged position. Unlike other boys, whom he describes as being “assured” of their place, the narrator doesn’t feel the same sense of entitlement and feels grateful for the chance to attend the school.
Themes
Later that day, the narrator is called into Dean Makepeace’s office. The narrator thinks he’s been called in about his poor grades and is nervous because he is at the school on scholarship. But Dean Makepeace says that the narrator is there because of how he treated Gershon that morning. The narrator is confused, saying he didn’t mean to hurry Gershon. The Dean asks him to whistle his song from the morning, and when he does, Dean Makepeace says that it is a Nazi marching song.
The narrator continues to illustrate how his class shapes his identity at the school even as he tries to deny it. Again, unlike other boys who have a sense of entitlement in being at the school, the narrator wants to make sure that he can belong and worries that without getting his grades up, he won’t be able to continue attending.
Themes
Learning the origin of the song, and then that Gershon had lost most of his family in the Holocaust, the narrator starts to weep. He says he had no idea, and Dean Makepeace realizes that the narrator is telling the truth. Dean Makepeace gives him a glass of water and tells him to clear things up with Gershon.
This is the first example of failure becoming an important learning experience for the narrator. In realizing and owning his mistake, the narrator is then able to maturely apologize to Gershon.
Themes
The narrator visits Gershon that evening. As he explains his innocent mistake, he realizes that Gershon doesn’t believe him, and he understands that his excuse sounds too coincidental. The narrator realizes that he could tell Gershon that his own father is Jewish, but the narrator had only learned this fact a year before, shortly before his mother died. He was raised Catholic and knows very little about Jews. He also feels that the Jewish boys in school seem somewhat apart from the rest of the students, and though he believes in the school’s egalitarian view of itself, he doesn’t want to feel that he doesn’t belong.
In this passage, the narrator elaborates on his Jewish identity and the reason he tries to hide it. The narrator feels that the Jewish boys in school don’t completely fit in with the rest of the student body, and the narrator desperately wants to maintain his own sense of belonging—particularly because he doesn’t know whether to really consider himself Jewish. Thus, to keep up his image, the narrator continues to perpetuate little deceptions and closes himself off from others.
Themes
The narrator thinks that this is why so many boys aspire to become writers, because they form a society of their own outside of a common hierarchy. Writing gives them a power not conferred by privilege—the power to create images of the system they stand apart from and to judge it. The narrator recalls a class discussion about Russian writers being killed for criticizing the Communist Party, or Augustus Caesar sending Ovid into exile. The narrator was struck by Caesar’s fear of Ovid’s poetic criticism.
The narrator emphasizes the power that writers have, particularly in their ability to affect people’s view of the society in which they live. The story of Caesar and Ovid proves that point; poetry isn’t inherently revolutionary, but its ability to incite others in the society to revolution is what gives Ovid’s poetry power.
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