Transcript An Elementary School Classroom in a Slum

Stephen Spender
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 paperseeming boy, with rat’s eyes. 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,
Of squirrel’s game, in the tree room, other than this.
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. And yet, for these
Children, these windows, not this world, are world,
Where all their future’s painted with a fog,
A narrow street sealed in with a lead sky,
Far far from rivers, capes, and stars of words.
Surely, Shakespeare is wicked, and 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? On their slag heap, these children
Wear skins peeped through by bones and spectacles of steel
With mended glass, like bottle bits on stones.
All of their time and space are foggy slum.
So blot their maps with slums as big as doom.
Unless, governor, teacher, inspector, visitor,
This map becomes their window and these windows
That shut upon their lives like catacombs,
Break O break open ’till they break the town
And show the children green fields and make their world
Run azure on gold sands, and let their tongues
Run naked into books, the white and green leaves open
History is theirs whose language is the sun.
An Elementary School Classroom
in a Slum
MADE BY RONEL MYBURGH
Stephen Spender was born in England in
1909. In 1930 he was deeply concerned
with social issues and wrote about them
with passion and pity.
This poem reflects the farce of having
compulsory education but offering no real
future for the thousands of children of the
poor. He states here that there is much
more to education than free schooling.
MADE BY RONEL MYBURGH
• The scene has an urban background – as
one could deduce from the word ‘slum’
• In the first stanza the poet describes the
students in the classroom.
• They are neglected and poverty-stricken
• Their faces show no energy – this is
contrasted with the reference to the gusty
waves.
MADE BY RONEL MYBURGH
1.
Far far from gusty waves these children’s faces.
MADE BY RONEL MYBURGH
Line 2:
Like rootless weeds, the hair torn around their pallor.
MADE BY RONEL MYBURGH
Line 3:
The tall girl with her weighed-down head.
MADE BY RONEL MYBURGH
Line 3 -4:
The paperseeming boy, with rat’s eyes
MADE BY RONEL MYBURGH
Line 4 - 6:
The stunted
stunted, unlucky heir
Of twisted bones, reciting a father’s gnarled disease,
His lesson from his desk.
MADE BY RONEL MYBURGH
Line 6 - 8:
At back of the dim class
One unnoted, sweet and young. His eyes live in a dream,
Of squirrel’s game, in the tree room, other than this.
MADE BY RONEL MYBURGH
• Here the poet describes the classroom
• Just as in the case of the students it is
neglected.
• A few posters(donations) adorn the walls
of the classroom.
MADE BY RONEL MYBURGH
Line 9:
On sour cream walls, donations
donations. Shakespeare’s head,
MADE BY RONEL MYBURGH
Line 10:
Cloudless at dawn, civilized dome riding all cities.
Cloudless – contrasts with their dull
foggy lives – their futures are not
bright or clear but vague and dismal
Refer to line 14
MADE BY RONEL MYBURGH
Belled ,
flowery,
MADE BY RONEL MYBURGH
Tyrolese valley.
Line 11:
Belled, flowery, Tyrolese valley.
MADE BY RONEL MYBURGH
Line 11-12:
Open-handed map
Awarding the world its world.
MADE BY RONEL MYBURGH
Line 14:
Where all their future’s painted with a fog,
MADE BY RONEL MYBURGH
Line 16:
A narrow street sealed in with a lead sky,
MADE BY RONEL MYBURGH
Line 16:
Far far from rivers, capes, and stars of words.
MADE BY RONEL MYBURGH
• The poet comments on the posters
decorating the walls
• The poet questions the wisdom of
exposing these students to vistas
which they will never experience.
MADE BY RONEL MYBURGH
Line 17 - 18:
Surely, Shakespeare is wicked, and the map a bad example
With ships and sun and love tempting them to steal—
All these things are cruel temptations
to long for a better life.
MADE BY RONEL MYBURGH
Line 19 - 20:
For lives that slyly turn in their cramped holes
From fog to endless night?
MADE BY RONEL MYBURGH
Line 20:
On their slag heap,
heap
This refers to the waste
material of a mine
Notice the possessive
pronoun used before
this noun.
MADE BY RONEL MYBURGH
Line 20 - 21:
these children
Wear skins peeped through by bones and
MADE BY RONEL MYBURGH
Line 21 - 22:
and spectacles of steel
With mended glass, like bottle bits on stones.
Spectacles – glasses – “mended” –
emphasising their poverty and
hopeless situation.
MADE BY RONEL MYBURGH
Line 23 - 24:
All of their time and space are foggy slum.
So blot their maps with slums as big as doom.
• For children in such a bad conditions, their
time and space are foggy, miserable slums.
• Therefore, the maps
on their walls should
be blotted with huge
slums and false
promises should not
be made.
MADE BY RONEL MYBURGH
Line 25:
Unless, governor, teacher, inspector, visitor,
MADE BY RONEL MYBURGH
Line 26 - 27:
This map becomes their window and these windows
That shut upon their lives like catacombs,
The windows, which show these students the scene of
the slum outside, close upon their lives like catacombs
catacombs.
So, unless a
governor,
inspector or
visitor feels
A series of underground
pity on these
tunnels used for burying dead students and
people –
encourages
Unless something is done their them, these
children will
environment becomes like
be
doomed.
MADE
BY
RONEL
MYBURGH
graves
Line 28:
Break O break open ’till they break the town
Note the repetition
of ‘break’
Children
must have
This is the poet’saccess
call – for
them to
to better
break free from this
social injustice
education
and a
Break away frombetter
these way
miserable
of life
circumstances – through education.
MADE BY RONEL MYBURGH
Line 29:
And show the children green fields
MADE BY RONEL MYBURGH
Line 29 - 30:
and make their world
Run azure on gold sands,
MADE BY RONEL MYBURGH
Line 30 - 31:
and let their tongues
Run naked into books, the white and green leaves open
MADE BY RONEL MYBURGH
And show the children green fields and make their world
Run azure on gold sands, and let their tongues
Run naked into books, the white and green leaves open
Line 32:
History is theirs whose language is the sun.
MADE BY RONEL MYBURGH
MADE BY RONEL MYBURGH
What about us?
MADE BY RONEL MYBURGH
MADE BY RONEL MYBURGH