Hundert is a retired teacher at St. Benedict’s School, telling his story, not “for his own honor” or “in apology for St.Benedict’s School,” (p. 155) but the story of Sedgewick Bell, his student, only in the hope that it will help “another student of history” someday. (p. 155).Hundert is developing over the story in a clear way showed by the situations with Sedgewick and his students.
The narrator’s stated purpose suggests that he is a reflective man who sees himself as an important person in the lives of his students because, as a history teacher, he “battled their indolence with discipline, their boorishness with philosophy, and the arrogance of their stations with the history of great men before them” (p. 155). The narrator believes he…show more content… 155) suggests that he is humble, because he is unconcerned with his own reputation. Alternately, this statement could suggest that the narrator believes that he has done things in the past…show more content… Julius Caesar” competition by giving him an "A" while he got a "B", also he decided to continue cheating by asking Sedgewick easier questions than those he asks of the other competitors in the “Mr. Julius Caesar” competition. His cheating develops the central idea of expectations, because of his high expectations of himself. The narrator describes “those students who come, under one’s own direction, from darkness into the light” as “the honeyed morsels of a teacher’s existence” (p. 164), referring to Sedgewick’s rise from “poor student” (p. 159) to a challenger in “Mr. Julius Caesar” competition. This support the narrator’s belief that he has a profound influence on the lives of his students. When Sedgewick hesitates to answer a question in the “Mr. Julius Caesar” competition, the narrator reacts with an overwhelming sense of responsibility for Sedgewick’s failure. He says he “felt that it was I who had put him in this untenable position, I who had brought a tender bud too soon into the heat” (p.