An Elementary School Classroom in a Slum, is a poem written by Stephen Spender.

2. Stanza 1
1. Far far from gusty waves these children's faces.
2. Like rootless weeds, the hair torn around their pallor.
3. The tall girl with her weighed-down head. The paper-
4. seeming boy, with rat's eyes. The stunted, unlucky heir
5. Of twisted bones, reciting a father's gnarled disease,
6. His lesson from his desk. At back of the dim class
7. One unnoted, sweet and young. His eyes live in a dream,
8. Of squirrel's game, in the tree room, other than this.

3. Stanza 2
9. On sour cream walls, donations. Shakespeare's head,
10. Cloudless at dawn, civilized dome riding all cities.
11. Belled, flowery, Tyrolese valley. Open-handed map
12. Awarding the world its world. And yet, for these
13. Children, these windows, not this world, are world,
14. Where all their future's painted with a fog,
15. A narrow street sealed in with a lead sky,
16. Far far from rivers, capes, and stars of words.

4. Stanza 3
17. Surely, Shakespeare is wicked, and the map a bad example
18. With ships and sun and love tempting them to steal—
19. For lives that slyly turn in their cramped holes
20. From fog to endless night? On their slag heap, these children
21. Wear skins peeped through by bones and spectacles of steel
22. With mended glass, like bottle bits on stones.
23. All of their time and space are foggy slum.
24. So blot their maps with slums as big as doom.

5. Stanza 4
25. Unless, governor, teacher, inspector, visitor,
26. This map becomes their window and these windows
27. That shut upon their lives like catacombs,
28. Break O break open 'till they break the town
29. And show the children green fields and make their world
30. Run azure on gold sands, and let their tongues
31. Run naked into books, the white and green leaves open
32. History is theirs whose language is the sun.

6. General Analysis
• Spender’s political voice
• Ideological position on:
– Government
– Economics
– education

7. General Analysis
• The students in the classroom are:
– Underprivileged
– malnourished

8. General Analysis

9. General Analysis

10. General Analysis

11. General Analysis

12. The Theme

13. 1. Far far from gusty waves these children's faces.
2. Like rootless weeds, the hair torn around their pallor.
The line should state: These children’s faces are
far removed from looking like gusty waves
Gusty waves: (image) shows brightness, verve
and animation.
It is missing from the slum children’s faces.

14. 1. Far far from gusty waves these children's faces.
2.Like rootless weeds, the hair torn around
their pallor.
Simile: Like rootless weeds
Weeds show the children are unwanted
Rootless shows they belong nowhere.
The slum children are like ‘rootless weeds’,
unwanted by society and not belonging to
society.

15. 1. Far far from gusty waves these children's faces.
2. Like rootless weeds, the hair torn around their
pallor.
Torn: uncombed hair
Pallor : pale faces
Their uncombed hair fall on their pale faces

16. A few of the slum children are being described:
1. The tall girl with her weighed-down head.
2. 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.
3. 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.

17. A few of the slum children are being described:
The tall girl with her weighed-down
head.
The tall girl’s head is weighed-down
with sadness, disinterestedness or
shame or a mixture of all three.
Tall – over aged for class

18. A few of the slum children are being described:
1. 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.
Metaphor: paper- seeming. The boy is as
thin as paper.
Rat’s eyes: His eyes pop out from his thin
body, looking furtive (sly) like rat’s eyes.

19. A few of the slum children are being described:
1. 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 stunted: he must have stopped
growing
Unlucky Heir:Inheritor (as if being poor is
not enough he inherits this disease)
Twisted bones: twisted growth

20. A few of the slum children are being described:
reciting a father's gnarled disease, His lesson
from his desk.
The boy is not reciting a lesson from his
desk, but he recites (shows) his disease
from his desk.
Gnarled: twisted, bent , knotty

21. A few of the slum children are being described:
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.
Right at the back of the badly lit room is an unnoticed
young boy. He is probably too young for poverty to
have stifled his childish imagination.
He daydreams of the squirrel’s game and about the
tree house, absent mentally from the classroom

22. 9. On sour cream walls, donations. Shakespeare's head,
10. Cloudless at dawn, civilized dome riding all cities.
11. Belled, flowery, Tyrolese valley. Open-handed map
12. Awarding the world its world
Metaphor: sour cream walls –
the walls are as awful as sour
cream: old, derelict, rundown,
ruins
Donations: there are many things that
have been donated on the walls.
You find:
1. Shakespeare’s head
2. Clear sky at dawn
3. A beautiful Tyrolese
valley
4. The dome of an
ancient city building
5. A world map

23. You find:
1. Shakespeare’s head
2. Clear sky at dawn
3. A beautiful Tyrolese
valley
4. The dome of an
ancient city building
5. A world map
Refers to
knowledge,
education,
learning,
culture and
sophistication
In Contrast to
the slum is
the clear sky
as the sun
comes up.
A nature scene
from the Alps. It
shows hope and
contrasts with
the slum the
children live in.
The dome of an
ancient city
building stands
for civilization
and progress
The map
gives the
world to
the
children

24. The lines “Open-handed map / Awarding
the world its world” could refer to the
map of the world hanging on the wall of
the classroom giving/showing (awarding)
everyone (the world) the world out there
to explore and know (its world).

25. Lines 13 to 16
World of
slum
children
Limited
world
Windows
of
classroom
Not what
map
promises

26. Future
Foggy Bleak Dull

27. Their life/world :
• is confined within the narrow streets of
the slum
• enclosed by the dull sky far away from
rivers, seas that indicate adventure and
learning and
• from the stars that stand for words that
can empower their future.

28. 'Lead sky' means a dull sky or a
dimly lit sky.
This symbolises the bleak, dull life
and future of the slum children.

29. Lines 17 to 24
The poet feels that the head of Shakespeare and
the map are cruel temptations for these children
living in cramped houses (holes), whose lives
revolve around (slyly turns) dullness (fog) and
hopelessness (endless night) as they imagine and
long for (steal) adventure (ships), for a better
future (sun) and for love.

30. Their emaciated wasted bodies
compared to slag (waste) heaped
together seemed to be wearing the
clothes of skin covering their peeping
bones and wearing spectacles of steel
with cracked glasses looking like bottle
bits mended.

31. The slum is their map as big as the doom
of the city buildings and their life (time
and space) foggy and dim. The poet
repeatedly uses the word fog to talk
about the unclear, vague and dull life of
the slum children.

32. The only hope of a life beyond the slums that enclose their
lives like catacombs is some initiative by the governor,
inspector of schools or a visitor. The poem ends with the
poet fervently hoping that slum children will have access to
better education and a better way of life.

33. He uses the words ‘Break o break open’ to
say that they have to break out from the
miserable hopeless life of the slum world so
that they can wander beyond the slums and
their town on to the green fields and golden
sands (indicating the unlimited world).

34. These can become their teacher and like
dogs lapping up food hungrily, they can
learn directly (run naked) from the open
pages (leaves) of nature and the world
which is sustained (whose language) by
the sun standing for energy and life.