REVISION 2---- An Elementary School Classroom in a Slum BY STEPHEN SPENDER

 An Elementary School Classroom in a Slum

BY STEPHEN SPENDER

Read the given extracts and answer the questions by choosing the correct option

1.Far far from gusty waves these children's faces.

Like rootless weeds, the hair torn round their pallor:

The tall girl with her weighed-down head. The paper-

seeming boy, with rat's eyes.

1 Which figure of speech is used in 'Far far from'?

(a) onomatopoeia

(b) pun

(c) alliteration

(d) irony

2 'Like rootless weeds, the hair torn round their pallor'

The word 'pallor' means

(a) an unhealthy pale appearance.

(b)  weeds

(c) hair

(d) both b and c

3 In the above verse what does the word 'these' refer to?

(a) gusty waves

(b)weeds

(c)rat's eyes

(d) the children of the slum

 2.The stunted, unlucky heir

Of twisted bones, reciting a father's gnarled disease,

His lesson, from his desk. At back of the dim class

One unnoted, sweet and young. His eyes live in a dream

Of squirrel's game, in tree room, other than this.

The word 'stunted' means

(a) having been prevented from growing or developing properly. 

(b)shocked

(c)scrupulous

(d)apprehensive

Why is the heir called 'unlucky' in the above verse?

(a)not inherited farmlands

(b) He has inherited his father's gnarled disease 

(c) ill-starred

 (d) gloomy

What does 'other than this' refer to?

(a)poverty

(b)unnoted child

(c)dim class

(d)gnarled disease

3 Spender’s use of imagery in “His eyes live in a dream, of squirrel game, in tree room, other than this”, brings out

  a. the similarity between the frail bodies of a squirrel and the children in the classroom.    

b. the contrast between studying in the dreary classroom and playing outside freely. 

c. the comparison of the dingy home of the squirrel and the dreary classroom. 

d. the difference between the games of the squirrel and those of the children.  

Simile
Like rootless weeds
 like bottle bits on stones”, 
“their maps with slums as big as doom”, 
“shut upon their lives like catacombs”

Metaphor: It is a literary device that is used to make a comparison between two things that aren’t alike but do have something in common.

“The paper- seeming boy, with rat’s eyes.”, “sour cream walls”, “all their future’s painted with a fog”, “sealed in with a lead sky”, 
“From fog to endless night”, “their time and space are foggy slum”, “whose language is the sun”.
Repetition: It is the repetition of certain words to lay stress and create a rhythmic effect e.g. “far far “, “break O break“.
Alliteration: It is the occurrence of the same sound at the beginning of closely connected words. e.g.

 Far far from,  

street sealed,

 Surely, Shakespeare  

 spectacles of steel

 bottle bits

From fog

So single   

Personification: It is the attribution of human characteristics to non-human things and animals. e.g. “civilized dome riding all cities.”. The word ride is used for humans. Here it is used for “civilized dome 

 

Enjambment: It is the continuation of a sentence across a line break. e.g. “His eyes live in a dream / Of squirrel’s game, in tree room, other than this.”

1.