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The orange trees that appear at the story’s outset establish a thematic symbol for both life and death that will govern the story. The students are meant to work closely with the orange trees and observe the complexity of their root systems. By tending to the trees and keeping them alive, they are supposed to learn responsibility and the value of life. But when the trees die, apparently for no reason, the children learn a different lesson about the inexplicable inevitability of death. This symbolic contrast between life and death carries through the rest of the story, as exemplified by the various other plants and animals that enter the classroom and die.
The gerbils provide an especially good example that carries forward the symbolic opposition between life and death. Early in the narrative, the gerbils die when the children carry them in plastic bags, teaching the children about the fragility of life. The children intend the animals no harm, yet their inexperience leads to the gerbils’ deaths. The gerbil at the story’s end, in contrast, symbolizes new life and hope. After discussing death, the children are wildly excited to see this new gerbil enter their classroom. In this case, their wild enthusiasm also symbolizes the absurdity of welcoming new life given the known inevitability of death.
The classroom itself serves as a symbolic microcosm of the world. The teacher and students are citizens of their private sphere, and Edgar is the authority to whom the children turn for direction, safety, and understanding. And like real-world authorities, he fails them at times. In the classroom, the children experience both life and death, just as is true of the world outside the school, which is filled with greater anxiety and danger. Outside the school, there are labor strikes, orphaned children, heart attacks, suicides, drownings, deadly accidents, and fatal home invasions. Inside the school, plants and animals die in abundance. The teacher and students wind up asking the same questions about life that they would pose outside, with no satisfying answers.
