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An Elementary School Classroom In A Slum
Far far from gusty waves these children’s faces.
Like rootless weeds, the hair torn round their pallor.
The tall girl with her weighed-down head.
The paper seeming boy, with rat’s eyes.
The stunted unlucky heir of twisted bones,
Reciting a father’s gnarled disease,
his lesson, from his desk.
The tall girl has bowed down her head:
Questions:
(i) Who is being described in the lines?
(ii) What is he doing?
(iii) What does he have in his eyes?
(iv) Why is the classroom dim?
(i) A young, sweet boy is being described here.
(ii) He is dreaming the game of squirrel.
(iii) He has dreams of other places as well.
(iv) The classroom is dim because there is no proper facility of light.
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The walls of the classroom are decorated with the pictures of ‘Shakespeare, ‘buildings with domes’, ‘world maps’ and ‘beautiful valleys’. How do these contrast with the world of these children?
What does the poet want for the children of the slums ? How can their lives be made to change?
Have you ever visited or seen an elementary school in a slum? What does it look-like?
How does Stephen Spender depict the life of the children of ‘An Elementary School Classroom in a Slum?
What is the unnoted boy doing at the back of the classroom?
How is the future of the children of an elementary school in a slum depicted by poet Stephen Spender?
Why does Stephen Spender call the slum children of Tyrol as unsung fighters? What is his appeal for them?
How does Spender interpret the poverty stricken yet onward struggling men in the poem : ‘An Elementary School Classroom in a Slum?’
How does Stephen Spender picturise the children in ‘An Elementary School Classroom in a Slum’?
Or
How is the utter poverty of children depicted?Explain “For these children these windows, not this world, are world”.
Or
The poet says, “and yet for these children, these windows, not this map, their world”. Which world do these children belong to? Which world is inaccessible to them?Sponsor Area
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