“Vladimir: We wait. We are bored. No, don't protest, we are bored to death, there's no denying it. Good. A diversion comes along and what do we do? We let it go to waste. ...In an instant, all will vanish and we'll be alone once more, in the midst of nothingness”. Beckett, Waiting for Godot
“We cross our bridges when we come to them and burn them behind us, with nothing to show for our progress except a memory of the smell of smoke, and a presumption that once our eyes watered.” Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
“We’ve travelled too far, and our momentum has taken over; we move idly towards eternity, without possibility of reprieve or hope of explanation”. Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
Some of my most favourite texts I have ever taught at Shire Christian School have included Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead and Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot. Some may question how or why a Christan school would immerse themselves in texts that explore the meaninglessness of life, and lack of purpose in our existence. Yet, I cannot think of anything better than spending a whole lesson exploring these ideas through the art and beauty of these playwrights’ words, whilst framing them against the hope and promises provided in God’s word.
From the roaring, excessive Jazz age of F.Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, through to the absurdist mid-century plays of Beckett’s Waiting for Godot and Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, students can engage with the reality of our broken, fallen world through these disillusioned narratives of futility, moral decay and fractured relationships. What a gift though, in our Christian school, to be able to present this brokenness against the glorious backdrop of God’s grand narrative of purpose, hope and relationship with Him.
I thought it could be helpful to provide parents with an example of how we can frame one of these types of texts in our school. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby is a novel we have frequently taught in Stage 6 English. It is a searing critique of the excess and moral decay that characterised the Jazz Age. Nowhere is this decadence more vividly illustrated than in the extravagant parties held at Jay Gatsby’s mansion—opulent spectacles that reveal the hollow materialism of the era. Each weekend, Gatsby’s estate transforms into a dazzling carnival of music, indulgence, and unchecked consumption (all indicative of the hedonism on the 1920s), where guests arrive uninvited and depart without ever acknowledging their host. The sheer abundance of food, alcohol, and entertainment underscores the novel’s broader themes of superficiality and the transience of wealth.
Fitzgerald meticulously crafts an atmosphere of wastefulness, where he describes the excess and vapidness that defines Gatsby’s gatherings. His extravagant parties were filled with beautiful; people who “came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars” (p39), and where introductions were made and “then forgotten on the spot” (p40). Crates of fresh fruit are delivered weekly to Gatsby’s home, with “every Friday five crates of oranges and lemons arriv(ing) from a fruiterer in New York—every Monday these same oranges and lemons left his back door in a pyramid of pulpless halves.” Such images provide a wonderful opportunity to discuss with students representations of the wastefulness and transience of Gatsby’s world, where relationships and resources are drained for ephemeral pleasures rather than meaningful, Godly purposes.
Perhaps the greatest tragedy of Gatsby is not just his failure to win the woman he loves, but his misplaced hope. Gatsby was seen as having “an extraordinary gift for hope…he was the single most hopeful person I have ever met and I’m ever likely to meet” (pp 2, 147). This provides an authentic opportunity for us to then juxtapose this to the entirely different hope offered in Christ; a hope that is expectant and eternal. It is a hope that requires an understanding of the amplified love of God, made perfect in his promises and purposes.
To be able to frame our teaching with a Christian perspective is a gift. In our ever changing political and educational landscape, it is opportunities like these in the classroom that must be protected. I encourage our whole school community, but particularly our parents to continue adding their voice to the political discussion to ensure that Christian schools can remain secure in having the freedom to be distinctively different and Christian in how we approach schooling and the curriculum. I have treasured such freedoms during my time at Shire, and as a parent, I can see the critical importance of this in the years to come.
“For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently”. Romans 8:24-25
Mrs Natalie Bluhdorn
Academic Head
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