CBSE Class 12 Board Examination

Chapter 2: An Elementary School Classroom in a Slum

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Summary

Written by Stephen Spender, this poem exposes the grim plight of slum children in an elementary school and pleads for social reform. The poet paints a bleak picture of the classroom: the children's faces are pale and lifeless, far removed from the gusty energy of childhood. One tall girl is weighed down with weariness, a paper-thin boy has the stunted, rat-like look of disease and hunger inherited from his father, and another sweet young boy sits dreaming of games and the open air, his mind elsewhere. On the sour, cream-coloured walls hang donated pictures and a map of the world — Shakespeare's head, scenes of domes and bells, and beautiful valleys — which represent a world of beauty and possibility utterly out of the slum children's reach. For these children, the world that truly belongs to them is the cramped, narrow street sealed in with a lead sky; their future is a fog. The poet bitterly observes that the map on the wall is meaningless and even mocking unless their bleak reality changes. In the final stanza he appeals to those in power — governors, inspectors, visitors — to break the barriers of poverty and ignorance, to let these children escape the slum, run on green fields and reach the sun and books, for history is ultimately made by those who give the children freedom and light.

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