Miss Tretheway: a Hero Among The Forgotten 

In the story Long, Long After School it details the experiences of a devoted teacher attempting to thwart the racism that occurs in her beloved classroom. With an open mind Miss Tretheway is determined to end this dilemma, and is constantly attempting to fix society’s wrong doing. She is constantly approaching this problem with a superior amount of elegance and the audience can make a conclusion that she is a strong anti-racist figure in her community.

Now with that said you can draw this information to realize that Miss Tretheway is a humble, generous and determined woman. Overall you can use that to see Miss Tretheway is a hero among the forgotten. If you were to label Miss Tretheway one thing it would have to be humble due to her humble demeanor and selfless attitude. She maintains this humble demeanor even when conflicting actions and words threaten her humility. When she is donating her blood to Wes she declares that “an old maid’s blood would be any good to a fine young specimen” (115), which showcases her devotion to being humble. Also throughout the story she never thinks highly of herself, and never gives the readers a hint that she is not bursting with humility. With this information a person who is never on their “high horse” can’t be described as anything except for humble.

Also while Miss Tretheway is giving away her blood you see a sense of generosity which can be added to her list of character traits. Now you can see that Miss Tretheway is very generous with the line “she gave me a whole quart, just as soon as she found out that her’s is a match”(115). This demonstrates her willingness to give back to others which is a key factor in identifying that in fact Miss Tretheway is indeed a generous person. Another way that readers can determine that she is in fact generous is all due to Wes explaining that she gives him books, which also ties into her anti-racism. This ties into the anti-racism persona because the story explain that it’s hard to get books when your black which even further demonstrates the generosity put forth by Miss Tretheway.