A Challenge for Youth-An Education

In England in 1961, Jenny Mellor, a school girl comes across a charming older Jewish man, David Goldman. They strike up a relationship and David manages to charm Jenny’s parents into allowing him to take her to concerts, clubs, and even Paris. She is attracted by the thrilling life she has never had. She drops out of her school without taking her A-levels. She accepts his proposal. She dreams of a very different life. But when Jenny finds out that David has been married, she realizes that her dream is broken. Her old headmistress refuses to allow her to repeat her final year of school, so Jenny goes to the home of her favorite teacher, who helps her study and pass her A-levels. Finally, she is accepted by Oxford to read English which had always been her destination before she met David.

The final scene shows her riding her bike on the streets of Oxford with a male student. Jenny narrates in the background: “So, I went to read English books, and did my best to avoid the speccy, spotty fate that Helen had predicted for me. I probably looked as wide-eyed, fresh, and artless as any other student…But I wasn’t. One of the boys I went out with, and they really were boys, once asked me to go to Paris with him. And I told him I’d love to. I was dying to see Paris… as if I’d never been.”

There’s once a road in front of you which points to a destination you have been dreamed of. But it is boring and difficult. You are clever and beautiful; you are the one supposed to reach the goal. However, a so different person breaks into your life and totally disturbs your life. You find there’s another much more interesting world you had never been. You can gain happiness without reading those boring books and learning those hard Latin. You are totally occupied. You get away from the road you used to go day by day. You thought that is what life should be like. But when you find it’s a wrong way you will regret very much. Of course, you can go back to the hard and boring road you have ever been and achieve what you want ago. And you can say you are lucky because you are still young. But, something is gone and won’t be back. Something is done and cannot be erased. You got a dream which turn out to be broken. You lose a heart with no fissure.