Powerful Emotion in The School Children by Louise GluckIn the poem The School Children, the author Louise Gluck successfully creates for the reader a picture of the children, their mothers, and position they occupy in their company. Its simple yet descriptive words suggest a deeper meaning that allows you to look beyond the simple plot of the poem and actually examine the entire situation the poem discusses. The plot simply tells of mothers who pick apples and send their children to school with them, in the hope that they will receive an education in return. After completing the poem, the reader realizes that the apples are the center of the poem, around which the true meaning revolves. Through seemingly simple words, Gluck conveys to the reader a meaning throughout the poem that is camouflaged, so to speak, in the apples, as well as in his words. Gluck's use of simple diction and imagery deceptively shows the powerful emotion, desperate hope, and passionate meaning held within apples. In the first stanza, Gluck describes the mothers' picking apples as "words from another language." This tells the reader that apples have another meaning, they are used to express, perhaps an expression of mothers? thoughts, feelings or intentions. This line alone allows the reader to wonder what the apples actually represent. By describing the apples in this way, Gluck tells the reader that the apples mean more than what the surface of the poem tells us, we can therefore infer that the poem itself also has an alternative meaning. Therefore, with this line, Gluck not only begins to use descriptive diction to imply meaning, but also to excite…half of the paper…of the poem by expressing to the reader the seriousness and significance of the situation. It is clear that the real meaning behind the poem is contained in the apples. Remembering that Gluck described the apples of the ?words of another language? in the first stanza of the poem we now understand that Gluck herself used apples as words from another language. By using the first description of apples to pique the reader's curiosity, using apples to make the teacher happy, and creating an image of apples as ammunition, Gluck successfully used diction and imagery to create an underlying image. meaning to the poem without ever actually saying it. In conclusion, Gluck has deceptively used apples, along with his excellent use of diction and imagery, to show a much deeper meaning in a unique yet entertaining way..