Old School

As a dean, literature master, and perceived friend of Hemingway, Dean Makepeace is a respected campus figure. When Hemingway agrees to visit, everyone assumes it is because of Dean Makepeace’s connection. However, we later learn that Dean Makepeace has never even met Hemingway. Though he has never told anyone that they were friends, he does not quash a rumor that they are. Over the years, this rumor has become accepted fact and afforded Dean Makepeace greater respect from students and faculty.

Dean Makepeace refuses the headmaster’s request to participate in the narrator’s expulsion. He tells the headmaster about his own deception regarding Hemingway and then resigns. The following school year, the headmaster welcomes back Dean Makepeace, who takes a position as a literature master.

During the narrator’s time at the prep school, Mr. Ramsey is a literature master whose “chubby cheeks showed their youthful English bloom” (50). Along with much of the 1960s literary world that embraces experimentation, Mr. Ramsey is critical of traditional forms.

Much later in life, Mr. Ramsey runs into the narrator, who has gained literary success. Mr. Ramsey invites the narrator to come to campus as a visiting writer. He then tells the story of Dean Makepeace’s deception and how it related to the narrator’s expulsion.

Bill is the narrator’s roommate at school. Though they have lived together for years and are members of the same literary circle, they do not have a deep friendship. The narrator has figured out that Bill is Jewish, but Bill does not reveal this part of his identity until he accuses the narrator of appropriating the Jewish experience.

George is the editor of the school’s literary magazine, Troubadour. He wins the Frost contest but is disappointed because Frost reads his poem as satire rather than as an homage. Later in life, he finds success in academia through his philosophy studies.

Purcell is from a rich family, but his writing is critical of class disparities. He is the most outspoken critic on the Troubadour’s editorial staff. He does not believe in Christianity and is nearly expelled for refusing to go to chapel. Purcell’s cousin, Big Jeff Purcell, greatly annoys him.

Frost was a decorated poet who largely wrote about rural life in New England. He chooses George’s poem as winner of the contest, at least in part because he reads it as satire and wants to show that he can take George’s barbs. When Mr. Ramsey asks him a question that seems critical of formal verse, Frost goes on at length in its defense.

Rand is best known for writing The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. These works are held in high regard by libertarians because they advocate for individual ambitions over societal needs. On campus, she is insulting toward all writing that features wounded or vulnerable characters. The narrator is at first obsessed with The Fountainhead but soon finds Rand’s personality to be repellent and her work to be unrealistic.

Hemingway was admired for both his understated realism and his adventurous lifestyle. The narrator becomes obsessed with Hemingway’s work and even types out his short stories so he can get a feel for what it’s like to write something “true.” Hemingway chooses the narrator’s plagiarized story as contest winner, setting in motion the events leading to the narrator’s expulsion.