An Elementary School Classroom in a Slum

1. An Elementary School Classroom in a Slum Stephen Spender 1964

2. Stanza 1 • 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 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 the tree room, other than this.

3. Stanza 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. 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.

4. Stanza 3 • 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.

5. Stanza 4 • 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.

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 • The capitalistic government is supposed to supply equal opportunity for education but the classroom in the slum offers little hope for change or progress for its lower-class students

9. General Analysis • Written during the Civil Rights movement in the USA. • Comments on race issues in American Education • It is against capitalism and social injustice

10. General Analysis • Poem is universal • It does not mention: • Country • Location • Race • Citizenship

11. General Analysis • Spender wanted to shed light on social injustices worldwide.

12. The Theme Stephen Spender highlights the plight of slum children by using vivid images and apt words to picture a classroom in a slum. Through this he touches, in a subtle manner, the themes of social injustice and inequalities

13. Far far from gusty waves these children's faces. 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. Far far from gusty waves these children's faces. 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. Far far from gusty waves these children's faces. 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: • 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 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: • 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: • 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. You find: Shakespeare’s head Clear sky at dawn A beautiful Tyrolese valley The dome of an ancient city building A world map • 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 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.

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

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

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.