Print
Word
PDF
|
This section contains 1,054 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) |
|
An Elementary School Classroom in a Slum Summary & Study Guide Description
An Elementary School Classroom in a Slum Summary & Study Guide includes comprehensive information and analysis to help you understand the book. This study guide contains the following sections:
This detailed literature summary also contains For Further Reading on An Elementary School Classroom in a Slum by Stephen Spender.
An Elementary School Classroom in a Slum Summary and Analysis
Preview of An Elementary School Classroom in a Slum Summary:
Stanza 1
The opening stanza of “An Elementary School Classroom in a Slum” provides a clear, dreary depiction of the students in the classroom. 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 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 then describes the boy “at back of the dim class,” stating, “His eyes live...
(read more)
|
This section contains 1,054 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) |
|
