Short Story - The Teacher by Catherine Lim

 Short Story - The Teacher by Catherine Lim

CHARACTER

Main character and characteristics

1. The English Teacher

• He is unprofessional. Instead of correcting the students’ mistakes in silence, the teacher kept on babbling about it with his/her colleague and even mentioned the student’s name.

• He cannot read between the lines. The teacher was not able to understand her student’s main problem as she only focused on how the student constructed her sentences incorrectly.

2. Tan Geok Peng

• She is not a good student. She kept on making compositions with grammar mistakes.

• She is shy and timid. She does not have the courage to tell anyone about her problems in person.

• She is in pain. She is suffering a lot, based on the content of her compositions, which can be clearly seen despite her grammar mistakes.

Minor Character and characteristics

1. The Teacher’s Colleague 1

• He/She is a good listener. Even though this colleague did not say anything, it is still vivid that she is listening keenly to the teacher’s rants since the latter did not stop taking her/his stress out about the mistakes committed by the students.

2. The Teacher’s Colleague 2

• She is a good listener. It’s the same with colleague 1, the way the teacher blabbed about the mistakes committed by her students again, it clearly showed that the colleague he is talking to is paying attention to him.

• She is sympathetic. This colleague understood what the teacher is feeling as she feels exactly the same with her pre-university students’ compositions.

3. Tan Geok Peng’s Father

• He is abusive. Based on the student’s compositions, it can be induced that his father is very abusive. He does not treat her very well. 

Static Character and characteristics

1. The Teacher

• The teacher only cared about his students’ grammar mistakes in their compositions from the beginning until the end of the story he failed to recognize Tan Geok Peng’s struggles

• Even in the last part of the story, he still felt the same emotion, which is being upset, although it has a different reason

2. Tan Geok Peng

• The student kept on committing the same mistakes in writing her compositions despite all the teachings and special coaching done by her professor

Dynamic Character and characteristics

1. Tan Geok Peng’s Father

• Though this character did not show any significant change throughout the story, it was still mentioned once that when he was in a good mood, he said something that made Tan Geok Peng happy. Also, he did not beat his wife at the same moment.

PLOT

1. Exposition

The story started when the teacher was complaining about the grammar mistakes done by one of her students in the composition they made in class. He was so stressed about it and even told his colleague sitting beside him in the staffroom the details of the parts that made him so upset.

2. Rising Action

A week later, the teacher was checking the new compositions made by his students entitled My Ambition. He called out the same student’s paper and complained about it to a different teacher sitting beside him in the staffroom. The student’s name was Tan Geok Peng. The composition still talked about the situation of her father being abusive towards her and her mother. The other teacher sympathized with him saying that most of the students are like that. She also felt the same thing with her pre-university students.

Climax

The story reached its peak when Tan Geok Peng did not just encounter grammatical mistakes in her composition but made something that is so out of context - as what the teacher perceived. The composition was all entitled The Stranger but the said student talked about her father again and how he treated them so badly at home. The teacher felt so disappointed as weeks of coaching did not help improve her student, but even had made the situation worse.

3. Falling Action

A piece of sad news suddenly reached the school regarding Tan Geok Peng’s having committed suicide. 

4. Resolution

The teacher felt upset about it, thinking if only Tan Geok Peng’s had the courage to tell him about her troubles, he could have helped her. Apparently, she was too timid and shy to speak up for herself.

THEME

The theme of the short story entitled The Teacher written by Catherine Lim depicted the struggles of some people around us and what we could possibly do if we are sensitive enough to read between the lines in every situation. The short story showed some human nature where we get so focused on what we personally want to see, hear, and believe that could disappoint us whenever it is not met. It could fail us to understand what others have been through which may cause us to unconsciously disregard their call for help like what happened to Tan Geok Peng. 

SETTING

Physical setting (write the 3 physical settings and their contribution to the development of the story)

1. Staffroom - this place played an important role in the development of the story because this is where the teacher does the checking of her students’ composition. So basically, this is where he complained about everything. It made the readers visualize the place where the teacher works and the reason why he feels so free to blurt out all of his frustrations. It contributed to the mood of the story.

2. Home - this place contributed a lot to the development of the story most especially on the part of Tan Geok Peng’s not-so-obvious narration of her struggles. All of the bad events that happened in her life took place in this specific place. It contributed to the theme and plot of the story.

3. School - this place has also contributed to the development of the story because it is considered as Tan Geok Peng’s happy place yet this is where she chose to end her life. It contributed so much to the plot and to the mood as well.