Class 12th Poetry lesson 2 An Elementary School Classroom in a Slum questions answers and Central Idea

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 Poetry lesson 2 An Elementary School Classroom in a Slum questions answers and Central Idea:–

 

Explanations

1. Explain with reference to the context of the following stanzas: 

(a) Farfar from............other than this.

Reference to the Context: These lines have been taken from the poem, "An Elementary School Classroom in a Slum' composed by Stephen Spender'. In these lines, the pitiable condition of shum classroom and children is shown.

Explanation: The poet visits the slum classroom and finds the children in very miserable condition. Their faces were very dull, gusty waves means strong sparking waves, that brightness and spark was unavailable at their faces. Their hair were spreaded around their faces and neck and we without oil and combing so looking like rootless weeds (grass). There was also a girl who was tall and her head was heavy so she was sitting downing her head. A very thin boy like paper was also there whose eyes were very small which shows that he didn't get proper nutrition during his growing so his eyes were compared with rat's eyes. He was the undeveloped, unfortunate successor of twisted bones, a boy who faced these problems since childhood and he was repeating his father's gnarled disease-a bone disease in which the bones are deformed. That boy was reading his lesson from this desk. The class had very low light, not sufficient light was there which harmed the eyes and disinterested the children from studies. At back side, one lonely, cute and little boy was sitting. That boy was indulged in a dream which was of squirrel and that squirrel was playing in a tree room (hole). So the boy was engaged in seeing the squirrel other than his class.

(b) On sour cream.........stars of words.

Reference to the Context: This stanza has been taken from the poem 'An Elementary School Classroom in a Slum' composed by 'Stephen Spender. These lines describe the internal geographical condition of the classroom of slum and the future of the slum children.

Explanation: The walls of the slum classroom were faded of off white colour and on those walls. there hung various things as sceneries, pictures, portraits, etc. given in donations. One of those was Shakespeare's picture of face, one was a scenery with the picture of doawn time without clouds and dome which is worshipped and followed all over the world, which leads the whole population. There were vallies, a valley named Tyrolese with the flowers shaped as Bell. An open-handed, big size pasted map of the world was also there which was representing the whole world with all land and seas to that remoted slum world. And what the irony was found that for those slum children, that map was strange, unfamiliar because they had never visited anywhere outside the slum. Those windows with that slum was their only world and their whole future was painted, fogged, blocked with a fog, smoke spreaded there everywhere.

(c) Surely, Shakespeare is........... as big as doom.

Reference to the Context: These lines have been taken from the poem 'An Elementary School Classroom in a Slum' composed by 'Stephen Spender. These lines show the uselessness of things on the wall and the low living standard of the slum children.

Explanation: The portrait of Shakespeare which is hung there on the wall is surely of no use for the slum children, Shakespeare is totally unknown to them, the map is said as a bad example because the locations shown in map are totally strange for them, ships, sun attract them and compel them to get those either in any way, that love is hatred for them, their lives are gradually turning forward in their low-heighted congested huts called holes, from daylight to everlasting darkness. That foggy blackness never ends. They (slum children) consume most of their time sitting leisurely on wastes and they are so thin that their bones are visible from their skiny thin layer, they wear spectacles of deel in which the glass is joined at many points as the glass bottle converts into pieces collapsing with hard stones. And at this point, the poet becomes angry. He tells that their maximum time and mativity wastes in that densed foggy slum. And poet demands to destroy those maps as well as slums and in the biggest way like the day of doom-the decision day according to Christianity.

(d) Unless, governor,..........language is the sun.

Reference to the Context: This stanza has been taken from the poem 'An Elementary School Classroom in a Slum' composed by Stephen Spender. These lines are the lines of poet's demand for slum children telling the ways for their development.

Explanation: The poet advocates the role of governor, inspector, visitor as till these and other authorities would not execute their performances, the condition of slum children would remain same. The poet advises that this map must be their futuristic gateway and those windows which dose and bound their lives like closed chamber-catacombs, then every approach ends. The poet finally concludes to break that everything which stops those children, their development, those children must be sent to cities or shown and visited green fields, open spaces to them. The poet wants to make them free to move everywhere on gold sands-the shores under the broad sky and their tongues must be trained, tongues must be freed to read all information giving all requisite facilities in the form of white-paged books and they must be given the natural environment and then they would create history and shine like sun, famed like sun worldwide and create a creative world.

2. Give the Central Idea of the poem 'An Elementary School Classroom in a Slum'.

Ans.

Central Idea

An Elementary School Classroom in a Slum' is a poem based on realistic condition of slum children in a slum school. They are very far from basic facilities, they are totally uncared and ignored. Their bodily growth is unbalanced due to lack of necessary elements in the body. They are the followers of their parental diseases. They dream of future, their lives and childhood games, so they remain untouched from the classroom. For only showing, many pictures are hung on the classroom wall but found useless. Natural things are presented there but they are distracted from nature. Their future is blocked in those congested streets. Those unapproachable things attract them to achieve but remain failed. Their skin is dull and thin which shows their living standard. They have no facility. Poet gets angry and demands to the authorities for making free those slum children and provide them educational and developing requirements so that they might grow properly and progress in their lives.