An Elementary School Classroom in

a SlumSTEPHEN SPENDER

1964

Stanza 11. 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 heir5. Of twisted bones, reciting a father's gnarled disease,6. His lesson from his desk. At back of the dim class7. One unnoted, sweet and young. His eyes live in a dream,8. Of squirrel's game, in the tree room, other than this.

Stanza 29. On sour cream walls, donations. Shakespeare's head,10. Cloudless at dawn, civilized dome riding all cities.11. Belled, flowery, Tyrolese valley. Open-handed map12. Awarding the world its world. And yet, for these13. 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.

Stanza 317. Surely, Shakespeare is wicked, and the map a bad example18. With ships and sun and love tempting them to steal—19. For lives that slyly turn in their cramped holes20. From fog to endless night? On their slag heap, these children21. Wear skins peeped through by bones and spectacles of steel22. 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.

Stanza 425. Unless, governor, teacher, inspector, visitor,26. This map becomes their window and these windows27. That shut upon their lives like catacombs,28. Break O break open 'till they break the town29. And show the children green fields and make their world30. Run azure on gold sands, and let their tongues31. Run naked into books, the white and green leaves open32. History is theirs whose language is the sun.

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

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

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

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

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

General Analysis• Spender wanted to shed light on

social injustices worldwide.

The ThemeStephen 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

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.

1. Far far from gusty waves these children's faces.

2.Like rootless weeds, the hair torn around their pallor.

Simile: Like rootless weedsWeeds show the children are unwantedRootless shows they belong nowhere.The slum children are like ‘rootless weeds’, unwanted by society and not belonging to society.

1. Far far from gusty waves these children's faces. 2. Like rootless weeds, the hair torn around their

pallor.

Torn: uncombed hairPallor : pale faces

Their uncombed hair fall on their pale faces

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.

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

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.

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 growingUnlucky Heir:Inheritor (as if being poor is not enough he inherits this disease)Twisted bones: twisted growth

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

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

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 map12. 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 head2. Clear sky at dawn3. A beautiful Tyrolese

valley4. The dome of an

ancient city building5. A world map

You find:1. Shakespeare’s head2. Clear sky at dawn3. A beautiful Tyrolese

valley4. The dome of an

ancient city building5. 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

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).

Lines 13 to 16

World of slum

children

Limited world

Windows of

classroom

Not what map

promises

Future

Foggy Bleak Dull

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.

'Lead sky' means a dull sky or a dimly lit sky.

This symbolises the bleak, dull life and future of the slum children.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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).

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.