Suffer The Little Children
Reading Notes
Name : Choirul Yanuar Rachman
NIM : 07 431 036
Class : B Date : April, 7.2009
Begin Reading : April 6, 2009
Finish Reading : April 7, 2009
Type of text Title Author Number of page Details
Short Story Suffer The Little Children Stephen King 7 Published in 1980
Summary An elderly teacher with back problems at Summer Street School, Miss Sidley, uses the reflection on her glasses to watch her class. She calls on Robert to use the word "tomorrow" in a sentence. He says "Tomorrow a bad thing will happen."[3] Miss Sidley is disturbed by the nature of Robert's answer, and in the reflection of her glasses she sees his face change into something described as "different".[4] She turns around to find that Robert looks normal. While checking the paper towels in the girls' lavatory, she hears two girls talking about her. They are suggested to be alien in nature, like Robert. When confronted by other teachers, she claims to have slipped. The next day, she keeps Robert after class. He tells Miss Sidley that there are eleven of them. He offers to change for her, and claims that he can sometimes feel the original Robert in his mind. When Miss Sidley tells him to go away, Robert ignores her, and changes. His mouth disappears, and his head elongates. His eyes flatten, and his nostrils form together. The process is described as looking like "melting wax."[5] Miss Sidley runs out of the classroom, and into a street, where she is almost hit by a bus. After taking a month long break, where she sees a doctor, she comes back to her class. She now believes that all of them have changed. Robert confirms that there are more, and tells her that no one would believe her if she told them. Miss Sidley brings a gun into school the next day, which her brother had taken from a dead German after the Battle of the Bulge. She tells them that there is a test, and that it will be taken in the sound-proofed mimeograph room. She kills twelve of her students, including Robert. Another teacher, Margaret Crossen, comes in for composition paper, and begins to scream. Miss Sidley demands that the girl, who she brought in to kill, change for Mrs. Crosse, but the girl only cries.
Miss Sidley is sent to Juniper Hill, a mental institution. In experimental therapy, she is allowed to work with mentally retarded children. Buddy Jenkins, the psychiatrist who is observing her, thinks that she is performing well. She then seems to see something that upsets her, and she asks to be taken away. Miss Sidley commits suicide, by cutting her throat. Buddy Jenkins begins watching the children closely and it is suggested that they have become subject to the forces which possessed Miss Sidley's class.
Analysis Suffer the Little Children is characteristic of most of Stephen King's stories. It takes you into the life of a classroom of seemingly normal kids who are a bit intimidated by their teacher.(Miss Sidley) It then moves you into questioning the your own assumptions. It builds you to a higher and higher suspense level, just when you think you know the ending, or have guessed the ending, you are left with a final question... and your own doubts.
Comment Most of characters are simply described in the beginning. Whereas Emily Sidley- right fully the protagonist of the story is analyzed in detail.
New words, etc Graying, brace, furtively, perusing, frowned, innocuous, flicker, glimpse, stab, cowlick, prominent, sternly, skittish, bulbous, hiccupped, snigger, festering, elongate, fuzzy, hunched, swelling and sewage
An elderly teacher at the Summer Street School, Miss Sidley is disturbed when one of her students tells her that, “Tomorrow a bad thing will happen.” When she probes further into the matter, she discovers that aliens are slowly taking over the bodies of her students. Is her attempt to save them an amazing act of courage, or a fatal trick of the mind?