Themes and message

Penelope Lively’s short story, “Clara’s Day”, explores themes like teenage identity, parenthood, and teacher-student relationships. The message of the story is that teenage years are a time of transformation when children are vulnerable to external influences, especially to their parents’ attitude toward…

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Identity

The theme of identity is explored through the main character of the short story, Clara. She is a teenage girl who is going through series of typical physical and emotional transformations. Clara's body is changing, her friends are beginning to date boys, and she is becoming more aware of sexuality and physical attraction. However, these changes come into conflict with Clara’s personality because while growing up she was very shy and self-conscious about her body.

Influenced by the sexual cues in her environment (magazine articles about sex, her mother having a relationship with an attractive man, seeing people half-naked or sweaty on the streets), Clara tries to free herself of her childhood shyness and takes her clothes off in front of teachers and other …

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Teacher-student relationships

The story illustrates the theme of teacher-student relationships through Clara’s interaction with Mrs Mayhew and the headmistress. Although Clara does something out of the ordinary at school (taking her clothes off in front of everyone), both teachers act with understanding.

Mrs Mayhew brings Clara her clothes back and asks her kindly if she wants to go home. The headmistress first ignores the incident – trying to minimise it in front of the other students. She then calls Clara to her office where she tries to find out Clara’s reasons for acting in that way. During their conversation, the Head tries to have a calm and understanding attitude. However, she also …

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Parenthood

Through Clara’s interactions with her mother, the story explores aspects related to poor parenting and child neglect. Clara’s mother shows very little interest in her daughter when they are alone. Although she is already home when Clara comes from school, she does not offer the girl anything to eat, doesn’t really ask her about her day at school, and is incapable to sense that something has happened with Clara. This is because the mother is more concerned with her new relationship.

The fact that Clara’s father is missing (possibly because of divorce or b…