Compare and Contrast ‘in Mrs Tilscher’s Class’ and ‘impressions of a New Boy’

Compare and contrast ‘In Mrs Tilscher’s Class’ and ‘Impressions of a new boy’

Poems ‘In Mrs Tilscher’s Class’ and ‘Impressions of a new boy’ both portray the school life of two children.  In ‘In Mrs Tilscher’s Class’ the speaker voices her opinion, which appears to be a positive and happy reflection of the speaker’s time throughout school.  In ‘Impressions of a new boy’, however, the speaker expresses unequivocally the displeasure he feels toward his school on his first day. The speaker does, however, at the end of the poem go on to find friendship thus his feelings of displeasure toward the school change to feelings of happiness.

        The speaker in ‘In Mrs Tilscher’s Class’ uses a metaphor in opening stanza ‘You could travel up the Blue Nile –‘, which donates a sense of amazement; the dash at the end of this line creates a pause allowing thinking time to such an amazing idea.  This feeling this gives to the poem is a sense of wistfulness which highlighted how engrossed and engaged the speaker is in the lesson and school life.  The effect on the reader is to evoke memories of good teachers who inspire their learners. This contrasts to the speaker of ‘Impressions of a new boy’.  Here the speaker expresses his feelings in the opening line ‘This school is huge – I hate it’.  Conversely, the dash used here creates a sense of space that adds to the hugeness of the school as well as the hugeness of the hate he feels toward the school.  This creates a daunting effect on the reader recalling how anxious they were on their first day at school.

        Both speakers use alliteration but each create very different effects.  In ‘In Mrs Tilscher’s Class’ the speaker refers to a ‘sexy sky’.  The softness of the –s sound sibilance here alludes to the passion and warmth the speaker is feeling as she approaches puberty and the elusiveness of all that comes with it. The effect on the speaker here summons up feelings of their own youth.   In ‘Impressions of a new boy’ the speaker mentions ‘steep stairs’.  Here though, the effect of the –s sound, donates a sinister sense, where these ‘steep stairs’ lead is perhaps somewhat elusive alluding to the uncertainty and insecurity the boy is feeling and difficulty he will have climbing these stairs.  The effect this has on the reader is elicit of memories when they too felt uncertain or insecure as a child.  

        Both speakers indicate that each protagonist has feelings of unease.  Whilst ‘In Mrs Tilscher’s Class’ the character is happy and engaged at school, it states ‘Brady and Hindley/faded, like the faint, uneasy smudge of a mistake.’  Here the speaker refers to notorious 60s child murderers, Myra Hindley and Ian Brady.  This suggests that the protagonist worries and feels anxious over the stories in the press about the Moors murders.    Her anxiety, however, dissipates, ‘faded’, when she is engrossed in school life.   The effect on the reader is to remind them of this time, when childhood was good but also, how children do harbour negative of worrying feelings.   In ‘Impressions of a new boy’ the character is clearly anxious at school and the speaker uses repetition to highlight this explicitly:  ‘Please take me home’,.  This will invoke memories within the reader of when they too just wanted to be in the comfort and secure embrace of the family home.  

        The speaker in ‘In Mrs Tilscher’s class’ talks about an on going period of time in school life.  ‘Some mornings,’ indicate a multiple days.  ‘… the inky tadpoles changed …./Three frogs’, this statement tells the audience that time is passing and changes are occurring, lives are growing and maturing.  ‘Easter term’ is spoken about and later in the poem ‘… feverish July’, again, stressing months passing by.  The effect of this impresses on the audience that the protagonist is growing up and maturing.  In contrast, ‘Impressions of a new boy’, written in the simple present throughout appears to be very much stagnant in time: ‘The head says ‘Speak’, but my cheeks flame’, ‘A sea of faces stare at me.’, ‘Its wooden ridge rubs my knee,’: these present tense examples emphasise how strongly that first day at school is impressed in the protagonist’s memory.  The effect on the reader is to evoke memories of their very first day at school and to highlight just how harrowing and long that first day was for the speaker.