AN ELEMENTARY CLASSROOM

IN A SLUM
- STEPHEN SPENDER

ENGLISH PROJECT
 CONTENTS

Sno. Topic page no. Teachers

signature
1) Introduction 3
2) About the author 4
3) Overview 5
4) Poem 6
5) Explanation by stanza 7
6) important meanings 12
7) Poetic devices 13
8) Summary 14
INTRODUCTION :
*The theme of the poem, 'An elementary
school classroom' is the plight of poor
children living in slums.

*The poet, Stephen Spender wants the life

of the slum children be changed.

*He wants their poverty to end.

He wishes them to live in healthier,
hygienic and beautiful environment.

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STEPHEN SPENDER
Sir Stephen Harold Spender CBE was an English poet, novelist and essayist whose
work concentrated on themes of social injustice and the class struggle.

POET NAME: STEPHEN SPENDER

Born: 28 February 1909, Kensington,
London, United Kingdom
Died: 16 July 1995, Westminster, .
London, United Kingdom
Awards: United States Poet Laureate
Education: University of Oxford,
University College School
Junior Branch,
Gresham's School, University College

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OVERVIEW: ELEMENTARY SCHOOL CLASSROOM IN A
SLUM
• Stephen spender in elementary school in a
slum wants the children to become
successful in their lives by making their
dreams come true.
• He wanted those bright eyes to become
capable enough to dream.
• This poem teaches us the value and
importance of education in everyone’s life.
• The poet wants society and governments to
do their bit in improving upon the pathetic
state of these students and slum schools
too to help them live an enriched life in all
aspects.
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ELMENTARY SCHOOL IN A SLUM:
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,

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A narrow street sealed in with a lead sky
Far far from rivers, capes, and stars of words.

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

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 Stanza 1:

EXPLANATION:
 In the first stanza, Spender describes the miserable condition of the children.
The faces of the children are unlike the usual children of schools.
 Instead of being exuberant and energetic, they are like rootless weeds, withered and worn out.
They are unclean and untidy, as they are malnourished, sick and hungry. Just as weeds are not
wanted in the garden,
so are these children of the slum unwanted in the society.
 They have pale faces. Their hair is uncombed.
A tall slim girl has her head bowed down as though she is exhausted physically because of
malnutrition
and emotionally because of poverty.
 The other students of the class are also in the same situation.
There is a boy, who is as thin as paper, again because of malnutrition and lack of civic amenities.

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 Stanza 2:
EXPLANATION:
 In the second stanza, the poet describes the dirty classroom.
On the walls are displayed the names of people who have given donations.
 The bust of Shakespeare is displayed in the clear background of the sky.
 Walls have pictures of the beautiful Tyrolese Valley as well as a map of the world.
The children’s eyes can only view a narrow road enclosed with a dull sky.
It is quite a dreary and depressing place for children.

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 Stanza 3:

EXPLANATION:
 In the third stanza, the pensive poet suddenly turns
belligerent (aggressive) and feels that Shakespeare is ‘wicked’.
This is because he misleads the children.
 He shows them a beautiful world of ships, sun and love which is not only unreal
for them but has a corrupting influence
on these children and instigates them to steal
and try to escape from their cramped holes.
Their existence is indeed very sad.
 The spectacles they are wearing have glass which has been broken and mended.

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 Stanza 4:

EXPLANATION:
 Finally, in the last stanza, the poet reveals the appalling truth that there can be no
change for the better
unless a governor, a school inspector or an educationist or a visitor comes to the school.
 The map in their classroom is the only medium for the children to view the
world outside their slums
 The windows of their classroom shut them and confine them to their world of poverty
and helplessness.
 “THE CHILDREN SHOULD GAIN FREEDOM FROM THE CAGE THEY ARE TRAPPED IN.”

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 IMPORTANT MEANINGS:
 Gusty waves: breezy winds
 Pallor: pale, dull face
 Stunted: not fully grown due
to malnutrition
Gnarled: Knotted, rough
 weeds: unwanted plants that
grow on their own
 Paper seeming boy: Very thin
boy, as thin as a sheet of
paper
 heir: Successor 12
 POETIC DEVICES:
1)SIMILE: a figure of speech involving the comparison of one thing with
another thing of a different kind, used to make a description more
emphatic or vivid
“children are compared with rootless weed (like rootless weed)”

2)METAPHOR: A metaphor is a figure of speech that, for rhetorical effect,

directly refers to one thing by mentioning another
“boy is compared with paper as he is thin (paper seeming boy)”

3)REPETITION: Repetition is the simple repeating of a word, within a short

space of words, with no particular placement of the words to secure
emphasis
“use of far to stress on the distance”

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 SUMMARY:
An Elementary School Classroom in a Slum, the poet
focuses on the government and societal norms that create
slums.
There are no steps taken by the government to remove
the slums and give these people a better life.
The government is not willing to bring any change which
restricts these innocent lives inside the boundaries of
these dark alleys.
The poet wants the kids to witness the beauty outside
in the real world. He wants them to feel the green nature
and play in the fields.
They should experience the warm sand of the beach
and the sunny atmosphere; it is their right to feel and
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learn.