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An Elementary Classroom in a Slum by Stephen Spender


 Background of the Poet:
Stephen Spender (1909-1995) was an English poet and essayist who took keen interest in politics. He took keen interest in the Socialist school of thought which explains his stance regarding the paradox of teaching elementary school children in a slum. His belief as strongly recorded in the Poem, ‘An Elementary School Classroom in a Slum’ is that it is mere wish fulfilment to think that you can teach children on an empty stomach! Stephen Spender became disillusioned by his tryst with socialism and he wrote about this disillusionment in an essay written by him in a book titled, ‘The God That failed’.

Values raised in the poem:  Sensitivity to the underprivileged, equity, equality, awareness, philanthropy, optimism, determination, change etc.

Background of the poem:
  • Written in 1964, the best example of Spender’s political voice resonating in a poem.
  • Expresses his ideological positions on government, economics, and education.
  • The students in this classroom are underprivileged and malnourished.
  • The capitalistic government is supposed to supply equal opportunity for education, but the classroom in the slum offers little hope for change or progress.
  • A commentary about race issues in American education and a Socialist proclamation against capitalism and social injustice in general.
  • Although Spender was British, the poem names no nation or race and was a response to the global question concerning social injustice which was an essential issue in the American Civil Rights movement of the time.
  • The poet’s tone changes from pensive to belligerent and frustrated to an appeal
Explanation of the poem:
The opening stanza of “An Elementary School Classroom in a Slum” provides a clear, dreary depiction of the students in the classroom.
The opening line of the poem uses an image to contrast the slum children’s faces with those of others. The image used is ‘gusty waves’ indicating brightness, verve and animation. But these are missing from faces of these children. The next image of ‘rootless weeds’ produces double effect. ‘Weeds’ indicate being unwanted and ‘rootless’ indicates not belonging. The slum children are like ‘rootless weeds’ unwanted by society and not belonging to society. Their uncombed hair fall on their pale faces. The first child is a “tall girl with [a] weighed-down head.” This girl is physically and emotionally exhausted, as if all life has been dredged from her body and sapped from her mind. Her classmates are in no better condition. “The paper- / seeming boy, with rat’s eyes” is paper-thin and weak. His eyes are defensive and scared, like a scavenger, a rat.His eyes might be searching food like rats’ eyes do. His prospect for survival, let alone success, is bleak. Another student, “the stunted, unlucky heir / Of twisted bones,” is the victim of a genetic disorder. Spender writes that the boy has inherited his “father’s gnarled disease”; he has been left disfigured, trapped in a physically challenged body. Spender has used the word ‘reciting’ to show that in addition of studying/reciting the lesson, the boy shows/recites his inherited crippling disease in the class
Spender then describes the boy “at back of the dim class,” stating, “His eyes live in a dream.” This last student represents both a glimmer of wary hope and a shiver of mental damnation. It is unclear whether he is dreaming of a life he may achieve or has lost his mind to the “squirrel’s game.” This vague distinction between these two conflicting interpretations exposes all the students’ futures: there is little or no expectation that they will succeed, and the best they can hope for is to keep their sanity and not fall victim to a faux reality. Beneath it all, the boy’s dreaming eyes may harbor an honest desire for true success. This last boy, “unnoted, sweet and young,” may understand his position in society and see the sadness of his fellow students. With this understanding, he may represent hope for social change, instead of merely being an individual who has lost his mind.
Stanza 2
In the second stanza, the poet describes the slum classroom in Tyrol- A suburb in Austria and the classroom contents. The word ‘sour’ used to describe the cream walls of the classroom indicates its derelict condition. The classroom is full of “donations.” The children are from the lowest class; they are the children of proletarians. The classroom is constructed through donations of others’ capital. All that the students possess comes from their oppressors, the bourgeoisie. The upper class, which holds these children in their place, also offers them their only tools to escape. The maps, books, and “Shakespeare’s head” that give the students hope of something outside their dreary existences are gifts from the very hands that clamp them down in their economic and social position.
.The “donations” may give a glimpse of some world to the students, but not of their world. The students do not perceive their world as like the one depicted in the classroom’s “donations.” Contradicting their state and the slum children are Shakespeare’s head indicating erudition, the picture of a clear sky at dawn and a beautiful Tyrolese valley indicating beauty of nature and hope, dome of an ancient city building standing for civilization and progress and a world map awarding the children the world. 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). But the world of the slum children is the limited world that can be seen though the windows of the classroom and not what the map promises. To these children the window which opens to them only shows a grey sky and a foggy future which never changes. Their future is bleak, unknown, and dreary.. 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 dullsky or a dimly lit sky. It suggests pollutin and burden of industrial world.
This symbolises the bleak, dull life and future of the slum children. The children in “An Elementary School Classroom in a Slum” are trapped by their social and economic status as children of proletarians.
Stanza 3
In the third stanza, Spender responds cynically to the reality of the students’ futures. He calls Shakespeare “wicked” and the map a “bad example.” He writes that “ships and sun and love” are “tempting them [the students] to steal.” The world presented by the bourgeoisie to the students in “An Elementary School Classroom in a Slum” is intended to lure them and drag them into a life of crime..
Although Spender voices cynicism, he does not lose sight of the true victims of the injustice of the class struggle: the children. In this stanza, he continues to describe the children “on their slag heap.” Their emaciated wasted bodies are compared to slag (waste) heaped together. He returns to their thin, malnourished bodies, stating that they “wear skins peeped through by bones.”.” Even their glasses are repaired ones, as they cannot afford new ones-the lenses are like broken pieces of bottle. Spender is making a resounding humanist statement about the treatment of children in this poem. It appears that he is more sickened by humanity’s disregard for the children than by the social and economic framework that has doomed these children to the slums.
Stanza 4
In the final stanza, Spender comes full circle. He replaces cynicism with hope, a plea for a new manifesto for the children. He is petitioning “governor, inspector, visitor” to all to join hands in order to educate and uplift these children.. 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). Spender further hopes that the children will be able to “let their tongues / Run naked into books the white and green leaves open.” If these children get the opportunity like other children get, their world can also they get a good education they can spread the light and awareness to all. Thus eradicating poverty and darkness
Simpler Explanation of the Poem:
Stanza 1
The poet says that the condition of the children in a slum school is pathetic. Their world is far removed from the open, enthusiastic, healthy environment. They are as unwanted as the rootless weeds. Their hair is unkempt and they have pale faces which clearly indicate their deprived and under-nourished condition. These children, as the tall girl, are stressed by the burden of their circumstances and malnourished. They are exhausted both physically as well as emotionally. The paper-thin boy is too skinny. His eyes have a scared, hungry look. These unfortunate beings have inherited only disease and bad luck from their parents. One of the diseased ones can’t even get up from the desk to recite his lesson. However, there is one child at the back of the class who is younger than the others and often goes unnoticed. His inexperienced eyes are full of hope and he is dreaming about playing games in the open and of a reality different from his life in the slum.   Stanza 2 The classroom walls have a faded, negligent appearance as they haven’t been painted for a long time. In other words, these children inhabit a world which is dreary and depressing. On the walls are displayed the donations given by people such as the bust of Shakespeare with the background of a clear sky at the time of sun-rise. The walls also have scenic pictures of Tyrolese Valley with its beautiful flowers presenting a world of heavenly splendour. Apart from all this, the walls also have a map revealing the world. But the world the children view from the classroom’s windows is foggy and harsh. It represents a dark and bleak future with no hope for improvement. Their eyes can only view a narrow road which is enclosed by a dull sky. The poet suggests that these children are trapped in a hopeless situation and their reality is far removed from the literary world which glistens with the beauty of nature such as the rivers, the high land jutting from the sea and is full of glorious words.

Stanza 3

The pensive poet suddenly turns belligerent (aggressive) and feels that Shakespeare is ‘wicked’. This is because his words mislead the children. He shows them a beautiful world of ships, sun and love which is not only unreal for them but it has a corrupting influence on these children and instigates them to steal to try and escape their cramped holes. On this path, their foggy world would turn into endless night. These emaciated children are so thin that it appears that they are ‘wearing’ skins. The spectacles they are wearing have glass which has been broken and mended. Their entire appearance reeks of their deprivation. The poet shows his outrage by suggesting that the maps on their walls should show huge slums instead of beautiful scenic graphics.

Stanza 4

The poet appeals to the governor, inspector and visitor to do something to improve the condition of these children. If there is political will, this map showing the beautiful world outside can become their reality too. The poet hopes the authorities would realize their moral responsibilities and free these children from their grave-like entrapments (catacomb – cave). He wants all the barriers to be pulled down; barriers that keep away true education from them. The children must be given freedom to experience the wholesome bounties of nature-view the green fields and run on ‘gold sand’. The poet begs to let them read books and form their opinions. Let them breathe in fresh air. Let them discover themselves and let them be creative so that their names can also enter the books of history. Let them find their place in the sun. Stephen Spender highlights the plight of slum children by using vivid images and apt words to picture a classroom in a slum

Poetic Devices: Like rootless weeds – simile
Paper-seeming boy – metaphor
Rat’s eyes – metaphor
Like bottle bits… – simile
Shut upon their lives like catacombs – simile
Last four lines – visual imagery
The theme of the poem
The central theme of the poem deals with the paradox of teaching elementary school children in a slum. Spender very strongly believes that you cannot hope to provide education to children who are poor and hungry. The sense of hopelessness and the lack of a bright future symbolised by the words, ‘fog’, and ‘foggy slum’ suggest that the very purpose of educating these children has been defeated. Poverty, hunger, hopelessness, and the fact that they are cut of from the rest of the world since they are bound by their poverty is expressed in the words, ‘A narrow street sealed in with a lead sky,’ and ‘catacombs’ lead to the poet’s belief that the only solution is to, ‘break the town’ and let the children run free on ‘gold sands’ and to, ‘let their tongues run naked into books the white and green leaves’. What Spender means is that it is only after the policy makers have addressed the problem of poverty and its attendant problems like malnourishment and inherited diseases that you can hope to provide an education that is empowering in the true sense!

Important metaphors used by Spender The poem, ‘An Elementary School Classroom in a Slum’ contains a few very important metaphors that support the poet’s attitude towards the idea of teaching children who are impoverished. The metaphor of ‘Shakespeare’s Head,’ represents the teaching of concepts and ideas that the students are not able to relate to because of their impoverished nature. The children are so poor malnourished, tired and hopeless that they don’t have the luxury of leisure to study works by Shakespeare. Moreover, ‘Shakespeare is wicked, the map a bad example’ because their exclusiveness tempts ‘them to steal’. It is ironical that by teaching them about Shakespeare, you are in fact teaching the students to steal. What they can’t hope to achieve in the normal course of time, they will try to achieve through unfair and illegal means, and this is more so because you have taught these children that Shakespeare is good, and the world shown in the map is good. The children will therefore try to achieve the good things in life by hook or crook! The metaphor of Nature as a teacher appears in the last stanza and it is represented in the words, ‘gold sands’ and the books with, ‘white and green leaves’. The ‘green leaves’ are pages in the book of Nature. The ‘Open ended map’ rather paradoxically is a metaphor for slavery or imprisonment because it shuts ‘upon their lives like catacombs’. What Spender suggests is that you can’t hope to teach the impoverished children about the real world by showing them the map because then they are reminded about the world they live in and the hopelessness that shuts upon them like, ‘Catacombs’ a twisted maze from which there is no escape. What they can relate to, therefore is not what is shown in the map, but rather the world of poverty and misery that they can see through the windows of their classroom. The windows of the classroom are the true maps that they can relate to, not the ‘open ended map’!  The Sun, incidentally is a metaphor for freedom as opposed to the ‘fog’. Spender makes it clear that history can be written only by those ‘whose language is the sun.’ It is clear that the message that Spender wants to pass on to the reader is that the fruits of education can be enjoyed only by those who are free from the shackles of poverty. A hard hitting point, but then what Spender seeks to express is the idea that policy makers should target the poverty of the children before attempting to provide them with education!

The tone of the poem The tone of the poem is rather sombre and profound mainly because the poet is trying to express a rather serious problem that affects our society at large. The descriptions of the foggy atmosphere, the ‘narrow street sealed in with a lead sky’, the, ‘slag heap…skins peeped through by bones’ , and ‘spectacles of steel with mended glass’ all add to the rather festering and palpable atmosphere of poverty and hopelessness. The poet wants to deliberately shake the reader out of his sense of complacency so that he or she realizes that mere donations or high ideals of providing an education that is supposed to be empowering are useless as long as they don’t target the problem of poverty. Poverty is a glaring problem in today’s world and it needs to be tackled before anything can be done to further the development and empowerment of the society. The image of the, ‘slag heap… bottle bits on stones’ creates a rather overwhelming sense of hopelessness that can be linked to the de-humanisation of the society. What comes to mind is the image of society that has devolved into a the ‘Wasteland’ as described by T.S. Eliot in his poem with the same name. The overall tone of sadness and gloom is paradoxical in nature as it highlights the irony of life in the twenty-first century in spite of all the technological advancement that is taking place. The gap between the rich and the poor is aptly brought out in this poem.

The philosophy of the Poet Stephen Spender’s poem, ‘An Elementary School Classroom in a Slum’ very aptly encapsulates his philosophy of life which is based on the themes of social injustice and class inequalities.  The poet constantly highlights his belief in the paradox of poverty, the idea that the more advanced the society, the larger the gap between the poor and the rich. His philosophy of life exposes the sham that exists in the society today, and the so-called hollowness in the intentions of the humanitarians of the world who want to do good to the underprivileged by  donating gifts which are in effect of no use.
REFERENCE TO CONTEXT
.1. Far far from gusty waves these children’s faces…………………..
………………………Of squirrel’s game, in tree room, other than this.
Q1 Why is the head of the tall girl “ weighed down”?
Ans. The head of the tall girl is weighed down because her life might be burdened with poverty , difficulties and responsibilities. Probably she is feeling depressed, ill and exhausted.
Q2. What do you understand by “The paper-seeming boy, with rat’s eyes”?
Ans. The phrase “paper seeming boy” suggests that the boy is very thin and emaciated because of undernourishment. His eyes are compared to those of rats because his eyes are timid and searching for food and security like the eyes of a rat are.
Q3 Who is the “unlucky heir” and what has he inherited?
Ans.The underdeveloped boy who is reading the lesson from his desk is referred to as “unlucky heir”. He has inherited twisted bones from his father. Along with his disease, he has inherited his poverty.
Q4. Whose ‘eyes live in a dream’ and what is his dream about?
Ans. A sweet young boy sitting at the back of the class is referred to here. He dreams of playing like a squirrel in the lap of nature rather than sitting in small ,dim and dingy classroom.
Q5. What does the image “rootless weeds” suggest?
Q6 What is the stunted boy reciting?(father’s disease , his lesson)
Q7 Why is the class described referred to as ‘dim’? (no proper facility of light)
Q8 Pick two images each of despair and disease from these lines.
2. Belled, flowery, Tyrolese valley. Open-handed map
Awarding the world its world
………………………. and yet for these children, these windows
not this map, their world, where all their future’s painted with a fog.
A narrow street sealed in with lead sky far far from rivers,
capes and stars of words
Q1. What do the classroom walls have?
Ans.The walls of the classroom have a portrait of Shakespeare, pictures of building with domes ,sunrise and beautiful alpine valley ,and world map.
Q2. Why does the poet refer to the Tyrolese valley in these lines?
Ans. The beautiful Tyrolese valley is in sharp contrast to dim and dingy slums. . The life of slum children is far removed from the life represented in the photograph of alpine valley as they never get to enjoy the natural beauty of the mountains and the flowery valley.
Q3.What is the future of these children?
Ans. The future of these children is bleak and uncertain.
Q4.What are the narrow street and lead sky indicative of?
Ans. Narrow streets are indicative of restricted and confined lives of slum children .Lead sky signifies dullness, dreariness and despair invading the lives of the slum dwellers.
Q5 Who are these children? What is their world like?
(These children are poor and deprived children – slum school, dismal,
impoverised world, authorities – apathetic unfair)
Q6. Explain: ‘civilized dome riding all cities.
Q7Why is the ‘window’ depicted as the world of the children?
Q8. What is the specialty of the Tyrolese valley?
( It is full of coloured flowers & resonated with the bells.)
3. Surely, Shakespeare is wicked, the map a bad example…………………..
………………………………..So blot their maps with slums as big as doom
Q1 Why is Shakespeare described as wicked? 2
– no correlation between Shakespeare’s works and the life of the slum children
– classic literature of Shakespeare beyond the understanding of slum children
– beautiful world depicted by Shakespeare is denied to the slum children
– Arouses the desire among the students to taste the joy of higher education, which for them seems to be unattainable
Q2 What does the reference to ‘slag heap’ mean ? 1
( – miserable condition of the slum children / unhygienic conditions / extreme
poverty / waste / rejected / neglected / considered useless)
Q3.Why is the map a bad example?
Ans.. The map is a bad example as it gives the children an idea of viewing vast and bountiful world , which for them is a distant dream. In order to fulfil their desires and aspirations they adopt illegal ways.
Q4.How does the poet describe their present condition in these lines?
Ans. The slum children live in dingy, unhygienic holes which they call homes. They lead miserable and pathetic lives devoid of hope.
Q5.Explain “from fog to endless night.”
Ans. “Fog” stands for obscurity and uncertainty and “endless night” signifies endless darkness and misery. The phrase means that slum children have no hope of progress and prosperity. They simply exist in their cramped holes stumbling from one despair to another.
Q6. How are the children described in these lines?
Ans. Children wear torn clothes and their bones often protrude from them.
Even their glasses they wear are repaired ones, as they cannot afford new ones.
1.  How do the children of the elementary school classroom in a slum look?
  1. What does the poet mean in ‘Shakespeare is wicked and the map is a bad example…’?
  2. How does the poet draw out metaphorically the present condition of the slum school children indicating bleak and dreary features?
  3. How does the poet begin the poem with all the despair and end with hope?
  4. What are the consequences of the distorted form of education given  to the under privileged children
6.The strength of a nation depends on its system of education. Comment.
  1. The children of the slum hope to have a life of mental and physical freedom. Comment

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