Rhetorical Analysis on “An Elementary School in Slum Essay

The poem “An Elementary School Classroom in a Slum” by Stephen Spender, begins with a stanza depicting the worrying condition of the students in elementary school. As the poem extends further, Spender points out the corruptions in the Government and accuses it for paying little attention to children’s education and health conditions. He argues that the children should break through the confinement of slum, and embrace the beauty of nature. In the slum, Children do not have pleasant moments; they are far away from the “gusty waves”, and far away from the fields and playgrounds that supposed to accompany them along their childhood memories.They also do not have healthy bodies. A simile compares their hair to “rootles weed”, which shows that the children are severely malnourished, and are not taken care of. The boy is “paper-seeming”, and “of twisted bones”. The “tall girl with her weighed-down head” implies the fact that she might be looked down by others, and she is physiologically and psychologically fatigue.