An Elementary School Classroom in a Slum

                                          

Summary
          This poem by Stephen Spender gives a vivid description of a school classroom in a slum and the children in the class.

The faces of the children are dull. Their appearance shows that they are unwanted. The children have gloomy faces. Their heads hanging low in sadness due to being poor. They have diseased bodies inherited from their parents and are victims of poverty. At the dim end of the room, sits one child who has bright eyes which seem to dream - of playing outside with squirrels. He is different from the others in the dim, dark room.

The walls of the classroom are dirty. People have donated different charts and images which have been put up on them. One of them is a picture of the great playwright Shakespeare. His head is bald and resembles the rising Sun. The next poster is of the Tyrolese valley, full of churches and flowers which symbolize the beautiful creations of nature. Another one is a map of the World. To these children the world is not the one shown in these pictures, but it is the one they see out of the class room window. They are trapped in the slums. Their future is dim and hopeless. They have a dark future as their options in life are limited and are covered with dismay. They are far away from the bright light of knowledge.

Comprehending these pictures is beyond their abilities. They hate everyone and for them, Shakespeare is a wicked man. As no one loves them, they dislike everyone. The desire for love and acceptance forces them to do crimes like stealing. The children are so skinny that their clothes are like a skin and their skeleton is visible through them. This is due to lack of nutrition. They have worn looking glasses made of steel which are cheap, heavy and uncomfortable. Their chances of fulfilling their dreams and moving out have been further reduced by building bigger slums. Until they come out of the slums, they will never know what the world looks like.

The poet requests the authorities to allow these children to go out of these slums so that the maps on the walls of the class room become a reality for them.  They should be taken to the green fields rather than the dim slums. The sunny, warm sand of the beaches and the bright blue sky will instill a hunger for knowledge in their minds. Then they will absorb all of it. Then these children will become economically empowered. The poem ends with a powerful line - those who make history are the ones who shine like the Sun.

Read the stanzas given below and answer the questions that follow each:
1.Far far from gusty waves these children’s faces.
Like rootless weeds, the hair torn around their pallor:
The tall girl with her weighed-down head. The paper-
seeming boy, with rat’s eyes.
Questions
(a) Where, do you think, are these children sitting?
(b) How do the faces and hair of these children look?
(c) Why is the head of the tall girl ‘weighed down’?

Answers:
(a)These children are sitting in the school classroom in a slum which is far away from the winds or waves.
(b)The faces of these children look pale. Their hair looks like rootless wild plants.
(c)The head of the tall girl is ‘weighed down’ by the burdens of the world.

2.…………The stunted, unlucky heir
Of twisted bones, reciting a father’s gnarled disease,
His lesson from his desk. At back of the dim class one unnoted, sweet and young. His eyes live in a dream,

Questions
(a)Who is the ‘unlucky heir’ and what will he inherit?
(b)What is the stunted boy reciting?
(c)Who is sitting at the ‘back of the dim class’?
Answers:                                                                                                                                                           

(a)The lean and thin boy having rat’s eyes and a stunted growth is the ‘unlucky heir’. He will inherit twisted bones from his father.
(b)He is reciting a lesson from his desk.                                                                                    

(c)A sweet young boy sits at back of this dim class. He sits there unnoticed.

3.On sour cream walls, donations. Shakespeare’s head,
Cloudless at dawn, civilized dome riding all cities.
Belled, flowery, Tyrolese valley. Open-handed map
Awarding the world its world.
Questions

  (a) What is the colour of the classroom walls?                                                                           

  (b) What do these classroom walls have?                                                                                  

  (c) Which two worlds does the poet hint at? 

Answers:
(a)The colour of the classroom walls is ‘sour cream’.
(b) The walls of the classroom have pictures of Shakespeare, buildings with domes, world maps and beautiful valleys.
(c)The poet hints at two worlds: the world of poverty, misery and malnutrition of the slums. The other world is of progress and prosperity peopled by the rich and the powerful.

4.…………And yet, for these
Children, these windows, not this map, their world,
Where all their future’s painted with a fog,
A narrow street sealed up with a lead sky
Far far from rivers, capes, and stars of words.
Questions
(a)What are the ‘children’ referred to here?
(b) Which is their world?

Answers:
(a)Those children are referred to here who study in an elementary school classroom.
(b) Their world is limited to the window of the classroom. They are confined only within the narrow streets of the slum.

5.Surely, Shakespeare is wicked, the map a bad example,
With ships and sun and love tempting them to steal
For lives that slyly turn in their cramped holes
From fog to endless night?
Questions
(a)Who are ‘them’ referred to in the first line?
(b)What tempts them?
(c)What does the poet say about ‘their’ lives?

Answers:
(а)Here ‘them’ refers to the children studying in a slum school.
(b)All beautiful things like ships, sun and love tempt the children of slum school.
(c) The poet says that the children spend their lives confined in their cramped holes like rodents. 

               

Note: Read the poem from your textbook and then read the summary. Raise your doubts in the comment box.