THE SINGING LESSON

1) Grief affects everyone and not just the person experiencing it. discuss this statement with close
reference to the short story ‘the singing lesson’

The short story the singing lesson informs the leader almost immediately that the protagonist
Miss Meadows is filled with grief and despair. Despair has been compared to a cold sharp knife
which is buried deep in her heart. The reason for this troubled state of hers is that her fiancé
basil had written a letter to her wherein he expressed that marrying her would be a mistake and
the thought of settling down with her filled his with disgust. He then seems to change his mind
and scratched out his word disgust and wrote the word the word regret over the top. This letter
had shaken Miss Meadows and she came to school troubled. This trouble state of hers seemed
to cause some error of judgement on her part as was evident in her interaction with the science
mistress. The science mistress was quite courteous and friendly towards her but Miss Meadows
seemed to think that she was been artificial and excessively sweet. Miss Meadow thought that
she saw a mocking light in the blue eyes of the science mistress and she wondered whether the
science mistress had noticed anything unusual about her. Thus we see that the grief present in
Miss Meadows at that point of time made her extremely conscious around other people.

The girls in the school were in a happy mood before the music lesson could began. They were all
exited and chatting with one another as students usually do. How ever Miss Meadows was in
different to the happiness of the girls and her behaviour expressed a certain tenseness which
was contrary to her character she asked for silence and started to assume that she knew very
well what the students were thinking of her. She was of the opinion that the students knew that
she was in a problematic situation but she consoled herself by thinking that the thought of the
students did not matter to her specially since her heart had been pierced by basils hurtful letter.

Every morning Marry Beazley who was a Miss Meadows favourite student would hand her a
chrysanthemum. This little ritual of the flower being offered to Miss meadow had been going on
for a term and a half Miss meadow would accept the flower, tuck it into her belt, thank marry
Beazley and ask the students to open the books to page 32. However that day Miss Meadows
ignored the flower, did not reply to Mary’s greeting and in a very cold voice asked the student to
open the books to page fourteen this horrified Mary and she blushed until she had heard in her
eyes. Because of the grief and hopelessness that she was experiencing at that point of time,
Miss meadow’s chose a lament for the singing lesson throughout the lesson Miss Meadows
mind kept drifting back to the contents of the letter written by basil. She wondered what made
him write the letter as the previous letter that he had written seemed to suggest that every
thing was normal as he spoke about buying a fumed oak bookcase for their books and a natty
little hallstand.

During the course of the song the gleeful excitement of the girls soon vanished. It changed to
singing a song whose every note was a sigh, sob, a groan of awful mournfulness when the
contraltos were added to the lament, it sounded so gloomy that one could scarlessly help
shuddering. The younger girls were so scared then that they seemed to be vailing rather that
singing. When Miss Meadows spoke in a stony tone the younger girls began to feel frightened.
When Miss Meadows asked the girls to express the word drear as if a cold wind were blowing
through it then marry Beazley felt so uncomfortable that she wriggled her spine. Miss Meadows
seemed to have no consideration for the students and asked them to repeat the song and add
more expression to it. This resulted in the older girl becoming crimson in the phase and the
younger ones beginning to cry. Even the whispering of the willows outside seemed to reflect
Miss Meadows hopeless state. Eventually when Miss Meadows left for Miss Wyatt’s room the
children were too subdued to do any thing else and still seemed to be recovering from the
interaction with Miss Meadows. Hence the grief that Miss Meadows experienced in the
personal life at that point of tine seemed to have a very negative effect on the student attending
the music lesson.