An Elementary School Classroom in a Slum by Stephen Spender - Explanation
The poem presents a vivid yet eye-opening description of an elementary classroom in poverty-stricken slums. He gives us an clear imagery of the children living away not just from the luxury of life but also the basic amenities. Through the poem, Spender makes a satire on the system where these children have no bright future
The faces of the children sitting in the classroom reflect a bleak picture of their degraded health and undernourishment. As the poet says that these children's faces have a squeezed faces unlike a healthy child's puffy and round face, their hair seems to him "rootless weeds" and their skin is pale due to. sickness. In the classroom, a tall girl seated with her head down, a skinny boy with "rat's eyes" due to undernourishment, another one suffering from a hereditary disease of his father's recites a lesson from his desk. In the classroom marked by the gloomy conditions of these kids, among them is an unusually sweet and young child who is mentally absent from the class. He is busy in his dream of "squirrel's game".
The condition of walls of the classroom is very unsound and it's decaying sour smell can be sensed easily. These walls are enshrined with the names of persons whose donations run the school. Other than that, an image of Shakespeare is drawn and visuals of great infrastructural masterpieces. Beautiful places like Tyrolese valley and world map also find a place on the walls. But for these poor children, this map doesn't symbolise the world, their world can be looked at from the window. The "world" they live in is quite contrary to the cheerful visuals on the wall. With such poverty, their future is "painted with a fog", in other words, their future is uncertain. The street which adjoins the school is quite narrow and due to the filth and waste land, the sky seems to be surrounded by lead which is very far from natural bodies such as rivers, capes(a strip of land projecting into a body of water) and open land from where myriad stars are visible.
For all the beautiful and lovely objects drawn on the walls are a bad example for these immature children. The reason for it is that all their lives are led in these "cramped holes" in foggy surroundings and it will make them thiefs who steal to lead a life with all necessities. For this reason, the narrator denounces Shakespeare or the world map or the ships and the sun. Through satire, the narrator makes a scathing attack on the indifference and ignorance of the governments towards extremely poor people. The living condition of these children is pathetic, they are malnourished and skinny with their bones visible. Their steel-rimmed spectacles have mended glass and it looks like pieces of a bottle lying on stones. All of their time are spent in "foggy slum" so there is no usage of maps and it should be blotted.
Their fate can only be changed if some public officer such as a Governor, inspector or any eminent visitor visit this place and take cognisance of their precarious condition. Only after getting out from the doomed slum, they can find the true meaning of life and its beauty. These people should show them green fields, sand beach where they will run on gold like sand and get them great books to read. The narrator meant to give these children a chance to live a quality life unlike a life in a slum which shuns all sorts of natural beauties.
The faces of the children sitting in the classroom reflect a bleak picture of their degraded health and undernourishment. As the poet says that these children's faces have a squeezed faces unlike a healthy child's puffy and round face, their hair seems to him "rootless weeds" and their skin is pale due to. sickness. In the classroom, a tall girl seated with her head down, a skinny boy with "rat's eyes" due to undernourishment, another one suffering from a hereditary disease of his father's recites a lesson from his desk. In the classroom marked by the gloomy conditions of these kids, among them is an unusually sweet and young child who is mentally absent from the class. He is busy in his dream of "squirrel's game".
The condition of walls of the classroom is very unsound and it's decaying sour smell can be sensed easily. These walls are enshrined with the names of persons whose donations run the school. Other than that, an image of Shakespeare is drawn and visuals of great infrastructural masterpieces. Beautiful places like Tyrolese valley and world map also find a place on the walls. But for these poor children, this map doesn't symbolise the world, their world can be looked at from the window. The "world" they live in is quite contrary to the cheerful visuals on the wall. With such poverty, their future is "painted with a fog", in other words, their future is uncertain. The street which adjoins the school is quite narrow and due to the filth and waste land, the sky seems to be surrounded by lead which is very far from natural bodies such as rivers, capes(a strip of land projecting into a body of water) and open land from where myriad stars are visible.
For all the beautiful and lovely objects drawn on the walls are a bad example for these immature children. The reason for it is that all their lives are led in these "cramped holes" in foggy surroundings and it will make them thiefs who steal to lead a life with all necessities. For this reason, the narrator denounces Shakespeare or the world map or the ships and the sun. Through satire, the narrator makes a scathing attack on the indifference and ignorance of the governments towards extremely poor people. The living condition of these children is pathetic, they are malnourished and skinny with their bones visible. Their steel-rimmed spectacles have mended glass and it looks like pieces of a bottle lying on stones. All of their time are spent in "foggy slum" so there is no usage of maps and it should be blotted.
Their fate can only be changed if some public officer such as a Governor, inspector or any eminent visitor visit this place and take cognisance of their precarious condition. Only after getting out from the doomed slum, they can find the true meaning of life and its beauty. These people should show them green fields, sand beach where they will run on gold like sand and get them great books to read. The narrator meant to give these children a chance to live a quality life unlike a life in a slum which shuns all sorts of natural beauties.