Flourishing and Goodness in The School Among the Ruins and Lark & Termite

The teacher as a model of goodness in The School Among the Ruins establishes the idea of giving care to innocent characters when not obligated to do so as a benchmark for goodness and flourishing. Along with this, the teacher put the needs of the students before his own, filtering out his negative thoughts for himself to provide them with only hope while “all night pitiless pilotless things go shrieking... [but] maybe tomorrow the bakers can fix their ovens” (Rich).  He “loves his school students” and upon the crisis he automatically assumes responsibility for them without question as reflected by his use of the subject “we” as he searches for food and water (Rich). While reading this poem, these associations with the meaning of goodness and flourishing struck me as very familiar to the definitions of these ideas in Lark and Termite (as described in my earlier blog post). The language in which the teacher uses specifically to address the students and to encourage the values associated with a typical school experience such as curiosity (“don’t stop asking me why”), nurturing and observation (“let’s pay attention to our cat”) demonstrates his understanding of the students and how to speak to them (Rich).  Lark also demonstrates this deep understanding of Termite and how to interpret his needs such as the bell ringing system on Termite’s chair and the way Lark knows that “things sound more like music in [Termite’s] version. Sounds instead of words” (Phillips 85).

In particular, the relationship between Lark and Termite endures to major catastrophes in which Lark’s behavior closely mirrors that of the teacher and as consequence of the actions of these caretakers the readers in both cases are left with a sense of goodness and hope. In Lark & Termite, the two main characters are nearly separated while boarding the train to Florida and Lark “would have shot [them] both if [she’d] thought they could be separated” (Phillips 246).

In the train incident the fact that Lark tries to shelter Termite from the near separation is similar to the teacher encouraging normal classroom behavior amongst the students despite his own knowledge of the “ruins” surrounding them. This encompasses the self-sacrificing quality of these relationships because the teacher and Lark are willing to take on the burden of knowing what is happening or “almost happened” (in the case of Lark & Termite’s near separation) in order to spare those they care for (Phillips 246).

It is important to note that in The School Among the Ruins and in Lark & Termite, the students and Termite, respectively, have mysteriously lost their biological parents and are left completely helpless creating the need for the care taking role to be assumed by another. The thought of what could become of them without this role assumed is what most appeals to the pathos of the reader. Especially, in The School among the Ruins, Rich’s suggestion of the cat teaching the children intimates the possibility of the children becoming wild, feral children without a caretaker to guide them into their roles in society. Whereas Termite is “so-called disabled” and it is suggested that he may not have a long life (Phillips 94). By the conclusion of the novel, without Lark he would likely be taken in by Social  Services while Nonie under suspicion for Gladdy’s death.