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"An Elementary School Classroom in a Slum"
1. “An Elementary School
Classroom in a Slum”
By Stephen Spender
A Presentation By Amrita Nath Sen
PGT ENGLISH, K.V. NO.1 BARIPADA
2. STEPHEN SPENDER
He was an English poet, an
essayist and a novelist.
He was born on February 28,
1909, in London.
He attended Oxford University.
He fought in the Spanish Civil
War.
His early poetry was often
inspired by social protest.
He was knighted in 1983.
Spender died on July 16, 1995.
3. A Selected Bibliography
Poetry
Collected Poems 1928-1985 (1986)
Collected Poems, 1928-1953 (1955)
Poems of Dedication (1936)
Selected Poems (1974)
The Generous Days (1971)
The Still Centre (1939)
Twenty Poems (1930)
Vienna (1934)
Autobiography
World Within World (1951)
Drama
Trial of a Judge (1938)
4. A Selected Bibliography
Essays
Love-Hate Relations (1974)
The Creative Element (1953)
The Destructive Element (1935)
The God That Failed (1938)
The Making of a Poem (1955)
The Struggle of the Modern (1963)
The Thirties and After (1978)
Fiction
The Backward Son (1940)
5.
6. An Elementary School Classroom in a Slum
By Stephen Spender
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. At back of the dim class
One unnoted, sweet and young. His eyes live in a dream
Of squirrel's game, in 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 map, their 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.
7. 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? 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, 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 to 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 theirs whose language is the sun.
8. [Kindly check the link on YOUTUBE to find
the video, containing introduction to the
poem.]
https://www.youtube.com/wat
ch?v=Mgp_65CMws4
9.
10.
11. [Kindly check the link on YOUTUBE to find the video,
containing explanation of the poem.]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-46ApZ7d18
13. SAMPLE QUESTIONS – ANSWERS
Read the following extract and answer the following questions:
1. “Surely, Shakespeare is wicked, the map a bad example.”
a. Why is Shakespeare ‘wicked’ and the map ‘a bad example’?
Shakespeare always wrote about the upper class of the society. Problems of the
poor had never been highlighted by him. So, the slum students can never feel the
connection with his writings. For this Shakespeare is termed ‘wicked’.
The world map seems to be a bad example because the children would never be
able to explore the world, depicted in the map and the places, shown in the map
would always be unreachable for them.
b. Name the poetic device used here.
The poetic device is irony.
2. “History theirs whose language is the sun.” Explain.
The poet believes that if the children would be given freedom to express
themselves, they would be able to create something like the sun and that will be
creating history through a movement that will change the future of the children.
14. Examples of metaphor:
1. “The paper-seeming seeming boy, with rat’s eyes.”
2. These windows, not this map, their world.”
3. “their future’s painted with a fog,”
4. “A narrow street sealed in with a lead sky”
5. “From fog to endless night?”
Examples of simile:
1. “children’s faces/ Like rootless weeds,”
2. ‘slums as big as doom.”
3. With mended glass, like bottle bits on stones.”
4. “these windows/ That shut upon their lives like catacombs.”
16. 1. What does the poet want for the children of the slums?
2. How does the poet describe the classroom walls?
3. Why does Spender call the map a bad example?
4. “So blot their maps with slums as big as doom.” What does the
poet want to convey through the mentioned line?
5. Why is Shakespeare described as ‘wicked’?
6. VALUE-BASED QUESTION:
You reside in Mumbai, near Dharavi. The people of this slum area
are affected by coronavirus. Write a letter to the editor of a
national daily, expressing your concern for these people and
giving solution to protect these people.
