An Elementary School Classroom in a Slum - Stephen Spender

[Acknowledgment: The questions and answers provided in this section are inspired by the themes and content of the NCERT English textbooks. For further reference, please consult the NCERT materials.]

1. How far are the lives of slum children?

Ans:- The slum children are far away from the gusty waves.

2. To what are the children's faces compared?

Ans:- The children's faces are compared to rootless weeds.

3. How are the hair of these children?

Ans:- The hair of these children are torn round their pallor.

4. What happened to the head of the tall girl?

Ans:- The head of the tall girl was weighed-down by illness and malnutrition.

5. How was the paper-seeming boy?

Ans:- The paper-seeming boy had rat's eyes. He was thin, weak and hungry.

6. What did the stunted unlucky heir inherit?

Ans:- The stunted unlucky heir has inherited twisted bones and gnarled disease from his father.

7. Who was sitting at the back of the dim class? What was he dreaming of?

Ans:- A sweet young boy was sitting unnoticed at the back of the dim class. He was dreaming of squirrel's game in a tree room.

8. What is the colour of the classroom walls? Why did the poet use this expression?

Ans:- The colour of the classroom walls is sour cream. The poet has used this expression to convey the sickly pallor and pathetic condition of the children sitting in the classroom.

9. What was put up on the classroom walls?

Ans:- On the classroom walls were donations, Shakespeare's head, a world map, a picture of the civilised dome, and Tyrolese Valley.

10. Which two worlds are contrasted in the poem?

Ans:- The world of poverty and malnutrition of the slum children who are weak and sick are contrasted with the world of progress and prosperity where live wealthy people.

11. What is the world for the slum children?

Ans:- The windows of the school are the world of the slum children. Their lives are confined within the narrow streets of the slum far away from the gusty waves of the ocean.

12. What is the future of these slum children?

Ans:- The future of these slum children is painted with a fog. It is uncertain and bleak.

13. Why is Shakespeare called wicked and the map a bad example?

Ans:- They hold no relevance in the lives of slum children who could not even meet their basic needs.

14. What tempts the slum children to steal?

Ans:- The beautiful things like the ships, sun, and love tempt the slum children to steal.

15. How would the slum children live their lives?

Ans:- The slum children would live their lives in cramped holes from fog to endless night. Their bones could be seen. They wear steel frame spectacles with repaired glass and their future is bleak and uncertain.

16. Who should bring a change in the lives of slum children?

Ans:- The governor, inspector, and visitor must bring a change in the lives of slum children.

17. Why are the lives of slum children compared to catacombs?

Ans:- The slum children would live in dirty slums which blocked their physical as well as mental development. They had shut themselves inside the cramped holes like the underground graves.

18. What should they break open?

Ans:- The barriers that confine the slum children to dirty surroundings must be broken and they must be brought out to experience the open air.

19. The walls of the classroom are decorated with pictures of 'Shakespeare', 'buildings with 'domes', 'world maps' and beautiful valleys. How do these contrast with the world of these children?

Ans:- The slum children live in cramped holes whose surroundings are slag heaps covered by fog. The pictures on the classroom walls depict beauty, progress, and prosperity in contrast with the ugly world of slum children. All the pictures put up on the classroom walls are a mockery as they have no meaning for the slum children.

20. What does the poet want for the children of the slums? How can their lives be made to change?

Ans:- The poet wants the people in authority- the governor, inspector, and visitor must realise their responsibility towards the slum children in ending injustice and class inequalities. The slum children must be given good nutrition and a good atmosphere to grow mentally and physically. They must be made to run on green fields and beaches where the sun would shine on them, where equal opportunities would be offered to them and they must share the fruit of progress and prosperity.

Figures of Speech (An Elementary School Classroom in a Slum)

1)Far far

Ans:- Repetition. The word ‘far’ has been repeated twice.

2)these children’s faces like rootless weeds

Ans:- Simile. The children have been compared to rootless weeds.

3)with rat’s eyes

Ans:- Metaphor. The eyes of the slum children are implicitly compared to that of the rats.

4)dome riding

Ans:-Personification. The dome is given the human quality of ‘riding’

5)Awarding the world its world

Ans:-Repetition. The word ‘world’ has been repeated twice.

6)future’s painted with a fog

Ans:-Metaphor. The future of the slum children has been implicitly compared with a fog.

7)A narrow street sealed with a lead sky

Ans:-Metaphor. The narrow street has been implicitly compared with a lead sky.

8)Ships and sun and love tempting them

Ans:-Personification. Ships, sun and love are given a human quality of tempting the children

9)From fog to endless night?

Ans:-Rhetorical Question. The question is asked to create an emphasis and not to get any answer.

10)by bones

Ans:-Alliteration. The syllable ‘b’ has been repeated twice.

11)spectacles of steel

Ans:-Alliteration. The syllable ‘s’ has been repeated twice.

12)governor, inspector, visitor

Ans:-Anticlimax. The words are in descending order of importance.

13)That shut upon their lives like catacombs

Ans:-Simile. The lives of the slum children have been compared to the catacombs.

14)Break O break open till they break the town

Ans:-Repetition. The word ‘break’ has been repeated twice.