An Elementary School Classroom in a Slum

THEME OF THE POEM

Stephen Spender is proclaimed as a socialist and a pacifist. In this poem, he concentrates on the theme of social injustice and class inequalities. He depicts the pathetic life of slum children who are victims of government’s apathy. The poet is writing about an elementary classroom in a slum and questions the value of education in such a context, suggesting that maps of the world and good literature may raise hopes and aspirations, which will never be fulfilled. The poor, emaciated slum children are like captives in the world of darkness, poverty and hopelessness. Through this poem, the poet expresses his outrage at the insensitive attitude of the rich & privileged people, towards the unfortunate children of the slum school. But he is not pessimistic. He qualifies it saying that all the learned people of the society are able to transport the education beyond boundaries of the classroom will spell hope for the future. So, we can say the poem is a bitter criticism on state of education in elementary schools of slum.

Figures of speech used in the poem

The whole poem “An Elementary School Classroom in a Slum” is presented in vivid imagery and figures of speech such as repetition, onomatopoeia, personification, metaphor, simile etc. In the opening line poet used repetition to emphasis on the distance between children of slum and the enjoyment of nature. He also used onomatopoeia (gusty waves) to refer to the bright energetic side of life. A live picture of gusty waves strikes our mind when we read it. Also to depict despair and disease visible in the slum children poet uses various images such as “the hair torn around their pallor”, “the paper seeming boy”, “with rat’s eye” , “gnarled disease”, “twisted bones”, “squirrel game”, the tree room” etc. by reading these phrases we get a vision in our mind of the that particular object.

Poet used various metaphors like “paper-seeming boy” (to mean light weighted), Rat’s eye” (to compare boy’s bulgy eyes to the eyes of rat), “slag heap” (to compare children’s physique to the metallic wastage), “language is the sun” (to present strength of language) etc.

Then poet used simile. They are “like rootless weeds” (to present children’s condition), “shut upon their lives like catacombs” (to present children’s suffocating life confined in slum).

Picture of slum children depicted in the poem

The slum children in an elementary school look pathetic. Their hairs are uncombed. They look pale and shabby. They are undernourished and diseased. They live in dark, dirty and narrow cramped holes enclosed with polluted grey sky. And forced to sit in a dreary classroom where they don’t get proper education.

Optimism in last stanza

Spender feels education is the gate way to the betterment of these children. It’s only the education that can release them from their measurable life. So, he appeals to the officials of all spheres of life to be sensitive to these children and break the barrier that hinders their growth and development.

The children of slum are hopelessly hoping against the hope

Although the children of slum leads a life of poverty, diseased, dark and hopelessness they dreams of nature, river, open fields and squirrel game. These dreams are nurturing their eyes but there is no hope of fulfilling them.

About the author

The author of An Elementary School Classroom in a Slum is a famous English poet and essayist named Stephen Spender. Spender was born in England in 1909. He writes about socio political issues like class struggle, social injustice, social discrimination and education. Some of his most acclaimed works are “The Struggle of the Modern”, “The edge of being”, “and The Creative Element”, “Poems of Dedication” etc.

Questions for home work

1.      What are the children compared to? Why?

2.      Why do you think the tall girl is sitting with a weighed down head?

3.      Give two phrases that suggest children are under nourished.

4.      What does “gusty waves” mean?

5.      Why the poet calls the child “unlucky heir”? What does he inherited?

6.      How does the face of these slum children look?

7.      What is the dream of unnoted child in the dim classroom?

8.      Why is the child reciting his father’s gnarled disease?

9.      What are two contrastive pictures you find in this stanza?

10.  What do you think is the colour of sour cream walls? Why poet used this expression?

11.  How the speaker feels about the donations? Give reason for your answer?

12.  What the windows of the slum school signify?

13.  Which world is of children’s in the classroom and which world not?

Or

Explain, “For these children these windows are world”.

14.  What are the two things mentioned in the poem represents civilized world?

15.  What the following things represent?

Ø  Shakespeare’s statue

Ø  Cloudless sky at dawn

Ø  Civilized doom

Ø  Tyrolese valley represents

16.  Explain, “Slag heap”.

17.  Explain, “From fog to endless night”.

18.  Why they are called blot in the map?

19.  Explain, “Run azure on gold sands”?

20.  Explain, “tongues run naked into books”

21.  Explain, “history is theirs whose language is sun”