POEM2

SUMMARY OF THE POEM Stephen Spender

Stephen Spender in ‘An Elementary School Classroom in Slum’

deals with the themes of social injustice and class inequalities. In
this poem, the poet vices his concern for children who live all their
life in slums and have no opportunity to enjoy the real blessings of
life. The poet sees some children sitting in a school classroom in a
slum. The faces of these poor children have no signs of any warm
blood running in them. They ate all pale and look lifeless. The untidy
hair hanging around their pale faces look like rootles weeds. There
is a tall girl with her head weighed down. There is a boy who looks
as thin as paper and has small terrified eyes like those of a rat. A
boy with twisted bones is reading out his lesson from his desk. He
has swollen joints as his father has. At the back of the dim
classroom, there is a sweet little child. He seems to be lost in his
dreams of what games the squirrels play in their tree home.
The walls of this classroom smell of sour cream. They bear
the names of those who have given donations to build this
classroom. They have also the pictures of a cathedral dome, of
Shakespeare’s bust, of a cloudless dawn and of the flowery valley of
Tyrol. A big open map is also hanging on the wall. It shows all the
seas and lands that the world has.
But the world that these poor children see is not this world of
the map. It is the world they see from the windows of their
classroom. It is a world that shows them only a foggy street under a
dull sky. It is a world far from the world of rivers and capes. It is far
different from the stars of words promised for them by the
politicians.
 The poet says that the pictures and maps hung on the walls of
the classroom have no meaning for these poor children. They can
only arouse in them temptations that will lead them to steal. These
children spend all their lives in homes that are no better than
cramped holes. They ate so weak and thin that their bones can be
clearly seen under their skin. For these children, maps of the world
have no meaning. In place of these maps, there should be pictures
of slums as big as doom.

The poet calls upon the school governors, inspectors, and also
the visitors to such school to take these children out of the slums.
They should take them out of these places that are no better than
catacombs. They should take these poor children to places where
they can play in the green fields and on the golden sands. They
should be kept in places where they can not only read from their
books but also play among the trees. They will have to be given
complete freedom to express themselves. The pages of books must
open for them. The poet says that history belongs only to those
nations where children can live freely and enjoy all the blessings
under the sun

Word Meaning in English Meaning in Hindi

Gusty waves Sudden strong waves

Weeds Useless wild plants

Torn round Scattered around in
disorder
Rootless Uprooted
Pallor Pale faces
Weighed-down Depressed due to the
burden
Paper –seeming Looking lean and thin
Stunted Undeveloped
Heir Successor
Twisted Bent, distorted
Reciting Enumerating

Gnarled Knotty
Unnoted Not noticed or not marked
Tree room Place made in the tree
Sour Unpleasant
Donations Things given as gifts
Dawn Early morning before the Å
sunrise
Civilized dome Institutions of the civilised
world
Belled Bell-shaped flowers
Open handed map Generous map, a big map
Sealed in Closed in

Lead sky Dull grey sky

Capes Places of high land sticking
out into the sea
Stars of words Tall promises made to
them by politicians
Surely Definitely
Wicked Not good or noble
Tempting Enticing
Slyly Secretly, artfully
Cramped Narrow
Slag Waste material
Peeped through Emerging
Spectacles Eye-glasses
Bits Pieces
Foggy Full of fog
Slum Dirty settlements
Blot Blemish
Doom Ruin, hell
Catacombs Underground graves
Azure Sky-blue
Shut upon their lives Block their progress

Gold sands Golden sand on the coast

Leaves Pages
Tongues run naked They express themselves
freely

Important stanzas for comprehension

1.
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.

Question-1: Name the poem and the poet.

Answer: The name of the poem is ‘An elementary School Classroom in a
Slum’. The name of the poet is Stephen Spender.

Question-2: Who are being described in these lines?

Answer: The poor children living in slums are being described in these lines.

Question-3: Where are the children sitting?

Answer: The children are sitting in an elementary school classroom of a Slum.
Question-4: Explain ‘weighed-down head’.
Answer: ‘Weighed-down head’ means a head that has been bent down due to
some sorrow, depress or illness.

Question-5: Why does the poet compare the children’s faces to ‘rootless
weeds’?
Answer: The children’s faces are compared to ‘rootless weeds’ because they
are insecure about their future.

Question-6: Who is the unlucky heir and what is he reciting?

Answer: A lean and thin boy having a rat’s eyes will inherit twisted bones of
his parents. He is reciting how his father developed that knotty disease.

Question-7: Why do you think the class was dim?

Answer: The class was dim because it was not provided with any electric
lights.

Question-8: Who was sitting at the back of the class?

Answer: A little sweet boy was sitting at the back of the class.

Question-9: Whose eyes live in a dream? What is his dream?

Answer: The unnoted, sweet and young boy who is sitting at the back seat of
the class is having a dream of squirrel’s game in a tree’s hollow outside the
room.

2.
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.

Question-1: What walls have been referred to in these lines?

Answer: They are the walls of a classroom in an elementary school in a slum.
Question-2: What is meant by ‘sour cream walls?
Answer: The walls are damp and give the smell of sour cream.

Question-3: What donations are there on the walls?

Answer: They are pictures donated by different people- a picture of
Shakespeare’s bust, another of a cloudless dawn, another of a cathedral dome
and still another of a flowery valley.

Question-4: Where are donations and pictures of Shakespeare’s head placed?

Answer: All donations and the pictures of Shakespeare’s head are hanging on
the sour creamy walls.

Question-5: Why are the walls of the classroom described as being ‘sour
cream’?
Answer: The walls of the classroom look unpleasant pale-yellowish, damp and
give the smell of sour cream. This is why they are described as being ‘sour
cream’.

Question-5: Why has the map been said to be ‘open-handed’?

Answer: The map has been said to be open-handed because it generously
shows the entire world to whoever looks at it.

3.
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.

Question-1: Who are ‘these children’? What do ‘these windows’ refer to?
Answer: They are the poor children living in a slum. ‘These windows’ are the
windows of the classroom where the children are now sitting.
Question-2: What has been said to be the world for these children?
Answer: The narrow street under the dull sky has been said to be their world.

Question-3: What has been said about their future?

Answer: Their future is painted with fog. It means that the poor children have
no bright hopes about their future.

Question-4: Who are these children? What is their world like?

Answer: These are school children living in dingy and dirty slums. Their world is
foggy, narrow and polluted. It is far from the open sky, clean rivers and capes.

Question-5: What kind of future does the poet foresee for them?
Answer: The poet doesn’t foresee any future for the slum children. Their future
is not bright but ‘foggy’.

Question-6: What do you think is meant by ‘stars of words’?

Answer: Here the poet is referring to the tall promises made by politicians to
the poor slum-dwellers.

Question-7: What does the map on the wall seem to proclaim?

Answer: The map on the wall proclaims the limitless world but the world of
these children is far removed from the rivers, the valleys and the mountains
that the map shows.
4.
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.

Question-1: Why has Shakespeare been said to be wicked? ( V.imp.)

Answer: The poet doesn’t mean to say that Shakespeare is wicked. He only
means to say that the picture of Shakespeare’s bust seems out of place in such
a classroom. Shakespeare and his works are of no use to them. He can’t help in
improving their cursed fate.

Question-2: Why has the map been said to be a bad example? ( V.imp.)
Answer: The map shows a world that is far different from the world of poor
children living in a slum. This map doesn’t include their world of narrow lanes
and holes. The map tempts them to steal. Hence the map is a bad example for
them.

Question-3: ‘Tempting them to steal’. Who does ‘them’ here refer to?
Answer: The word ‘them’ here refers to the poor little children in the
classroom of an elementary school.

Question-4: What kind of life do they live?

Answer: They live a life of poverty from birth to death in little homes that are
no better than cramped holes.

Question-5: What tempt them and why?

Answer: Ships, sun and love are all such beautiful things. They tempt these
children as they don’t possess them.

Question-6: How do they live in their ‘cramped holes’?

Answer: They live like rats in their cramped little holes. Fog and darkness
dominate their lives.

5.
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.
Question-1: What has been referred to as slag heap?
Answer: The bloodless bodies of the poor children have been referred to as
slag heap.

Question-2: What peeps through their skins? What does this show?
Answer: Their bones peep through their skins. It shows that the poor children
are all bones and have no flesh on their body.

Question-3: How do their spectacles look?

Answer: They look like bottle bits on stone.

Question-4: What blot ‘their’ maps?

Answer: These living cells are the dirty slums. They are blots on the map of the
civilized world. It is the world of the rich and great.

Question-5: What does the poet want to blot and why?

Answer: The poet wants to blot the maps of the world because the only world
the poor children know is their foggy slum.

Question-6: How are the children of the slum school described?

Answer: The Children of the slum school are weak. Their bones peep out of
their skins. They are too poor to wear good spectacles. The lenses in the
frames of steel are broken. They look like bottle bits on stone.

Question-7: Find words from the passage which mean:

(i) Secretly (ii) Waste material (iii) Pieces
Answer: (i) Slyly (ii) Slag (iii) Pieces

6.
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.
Question-1: What is meant by ‘this map’?
Answer: It is a map of the world that has been hung on a wall in the classroom.

Question-2: What are ‘these windows’ which the poet talks of?
Answer: They are the classroom windows from where the children can see only
a narrow street and a dull sky.

Question-3: How does the map act as a window for the children of the slum?
Why does the poet say that the window is shut?
Answer: The government opens such school to offer education to the slum
children, a peep into a better world, making the map a window to the charmed
world. But then it shuts that window, leaving the children confused.

Question-4: How can ‘this map’ become ‘their window’?

Answer: This map of the world is shaped and owned by the rich. It must also
be thrown open to the poor and unfortunate children of slums. Only then will
it become ‘their window’. They will be able to peep inside it.

Question-5: What has been referred to as ‘catacombs’?

Answer: The little narrow underground homes or galleries of the slum dwellers have
been referred to as catacombs. Their dirty surroundings have blocked their progress and
growth. They have been shut inside them like underground graves.

Question-6: What does the poet want the governor, the inspector and the
visitor to do?
Answer: The poet wants these people to take steps by which the poor children
can be taken out of the slum where they live. They can help in removing social
injustice and class inequalities.

7.
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.
Question-1: What children is the poet talking of?
Answer: The poet is talking of the children who go to an elementary school in a
slum.

Question-2: Where does he want to take them?

Answer: He wants to take them to a place where they can play in open fields
and on golden sands.

Question-3: What is meant by ‘the white and green leaves’?

Answer: The white leaves are the leaves of books (pages) and the green leaves
are the leaves of trees.

Question-4: Explain: ‘History theirs whose language is the sun.’

Answer: The poet means to say that only those nations live in history where
children can move as freely on the earth as does the sun in the sky.

Question-5: Who create history?

Answer: They create history whose language has the warmth and power of the
sun.

Question-6: What does the poet mean by saying ‘let their tongue run naked
into books’?
Answer: These slum children must be given appropriate opportunity to read
and study books to explore the world.

Question-7: What will happen if the children come out of the bonds that bind
them?
Answer: Then their world will be extended to the golden sands and azure
waves and to the green fields.

Short-Answer Type Questions

Question-1: Tick the item which best answer the following:
(a) The tall girl with her head weighed down means the girl:
(i) is ill and exhausted.
 (ii) has her head bent with shame.
(iii) has untidy hair.
Answer: is ill and exhausted.

(b) The paper-seeming boy with rat’s eyes means the boy is
(i) sly and secretive.
(ii) thin, hungry and weak.
(iii) unpleasant looking.
Answer: thin, hungry and weak.

(c)The stunted, unlucky heir of twisted bones means the boy

(i) has an inherited disability.
(ii) was short and bony.
Answer: has an inherited disability.

(d) His eyes live in a dream, of squirrel’s game, in tree room, other than this
means the boy is
(i) full of hope in the futures.
(ii) mentally ill.
(iii) distracted from the lesson.
Answer: full of hope in the future.

(e) The children’s faces are compared to ‘rootless weeds’ this means they
(i) are insecure.
(ii) are ill-fed.
(iii) are wasters.
Answer: are insecure.
Question-2: What is the message that Stephen Spender wants to give
through the poem ‘An Elementary School Classroom in a Slum’?
Answer: In ‘An Elementary School Classroom in a Slum,’ Stephen Spender deals with
the theme of social injustice and class inequalities. There are two different worlds. Art
culture and literature have no relevance to slum children. They live in dark, narrow,
cramped holes and lanes. Unless the gap between the two worlds is abridged, there
can’t be any real progress or development.
Question-3: Crushed under poverty, disease and miseries do the little
school children of slums have any dreams or hopes? What are they?
Answer: The children living in slums have to live in most miserable and sub-human
conditions. The burden of poverty and disease crushes their bodies. They still have
dreams. Their future is foggy and uncertain. They have kept their hopes alive. They
dream of open seas and green fields. They dream of the games that a squirrel plays on
the trees.

Question-4: What do you think is the colour of ‘sour cream’? Why do

you think the poet has used this expression to describe the classroom
walls?
Answer: The colour of ‘sour cream’ is pale yellow, off-white. This colour indicates
sickness and weakness. The children in the classroom are all sick and have stunted
growth. The poet has used this expression to suggest the decaying aspect of the
surroundings. Actually, these unpleasant walls symbolise the pathetic and sickly
conditions of the lives of these children. However, there is an implied meaning in the
word ‘sour’. The whole atmosphere is unpleasant and distasteful.
Question-5: 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?

Answer: These pictures mean beauty, progress, prosperity and well-being. But
all these pictures are meaningless for the poor children in a classroom. They only
arouse in them the temptation to steal. For these poor children the world of
Shakespeare etc. is not their world. Their world is limited to what they can see
from the windows of the classroom.

Question-6: What does the poet want for the children of the slums?
How can their lives be made to change?
Answer: The poet wants the government, inspector and visitors to realise their
responsibility towards the children of the slums. They should break the barriers so
that, children must be taken out of the slums where they are living. Their living
conditions should be improved. Only then their education can be meaningful. Literary
education should go side by side with material and physical development.
Question-7: How does the poet describe the faces of the children in the
classroom?
Answer: The poet says that the faces of the children don’t show any signs of
strength or vitality. They look very pale. Their untidy hair hangs around their pale
faces like rootless weeds.

Question-8: How does the poet describe some of the children in the
classroom?
Answer: There is a tall girl. She is sitting with her head weighed down. A boy looks as
thin as paper. His eyes look like that of a rat. Another one has twisted bones. At the
back of the class, there is a sweet little boy. He has dreamy eyes.

Question-9: What is there on the walls of the classroom?

Answer: On the walls, there are some donated objects. There is a picture that shows
Shakespeare’s head. Then there are picture of a cloudless dawn, of a cathedral dome
and a flowery valley. There is also a map of the world.

Question-10: What does the poet say about the ‘open-handed map’?
Answer: The map has been called ‘open-handed’ because it shows all the seas and
lands there are in the world. But he says that for poor children, this world is not their
world. Their world is limited to what they can see from the windows of the classroom.
Question-11: What does the poet say about the world of children
living in a slum?
Answer: The poet says that the world of these children is limited to what they can
see from the windows of their classroom. It is only a narrow street under a dull sky. It
is far from the open world of rivers, capes and golden sands.
Question-12: Why does the poet say: ‘Shakespeare is wicked’?
Answer: The poet does not really mean to say that Shakespeare is wicked. He only
means to say that a picture of Shakespeare’s head is of no use in a slum classroom. It
can be called wicked in the sense that it will tempt the children to steal it away.
Question-13: Why has the map been said to be ‘a bad example’?
Answer: The map shows all the seas and lands of the world. But the world of poor
children living in a slum is very different from this world. It is only a narrow street
under a dull sky. That is why the poet calls the map a bad example of a world for the
children.

Question-14: How has life of children living in slum been described?

Answer: The little homes of these children are no better than cramped holes. They
ate like catacombs. Here the poor children spend their lives from birth to death. They
are so skinny that all their bones can be clearly seen under their skin.

Question-15: What does the poet wants the governor, the inspector
and the visitor to do? (v. Imp.)
Answer: The poet wants these people to take steps by which the poor children can
be helped. He wants the children to be taken out of the slum in which they are living.
He wants them to be taken where they can not only study from their books but also
play and run about among the trees.

Question-16: What according to the poet, is the only hope for the
slum children?
Answer: The only hope for the slum children is that they should be taken out of the
slums. Their living conditions should be improved. They should get to play and run
about among the trees.

Question-17: Explain “So blot their maps with slums as big as doom”.
Answer: The slums are found in all the cities of the world. If we represent the whole
area they occupy on map of the world it is as big as hell. Truly speaking Slums are
themselves hell. Hence the maps (location) of the slum should be removed from the
map of the world.