First day at school theme of the poem class 11
Answers
Explanation:
The poem ‘First Day of School’ was written by Roger McGough who was a famous English poet. The poem epitomizes the naivety, ignorance, lack of understanding and anxieties of a child during his or her first day in school. The poem not only explores the innocence of the child but also the child’s curiosity.
The poem is goes deep into the mind of a child on the initial stages of joining the actual world. The experience is sometimes bewildering and hilarious however it provides adults with the wisdom of a child that adults usually lose touch with as the years go on.
The poet has intentionally avoided the use of poetic techniques to clearly show the simplicity that children are associated with compared to adults. The poem is the way a child would express himself or herself with complete innocence and no complexities. There is no rhyme in the poem as well. To a certain extent the poem mimics incoherent observations that a child would make in a new environment. To help emphasize the feeling that the poem is written by a child the poet has intentionally misspelled certain words. Since children do not have any knowledge in literary writing they will certainly misspell words therefore the reader believes the child’s innocence.
The poem is presented from the complete view of a child. The child observes the other children as they play and takes note of the manner in which some are secluded from the ongoing games. This could be because they are timid or have come in late making them the ‘new playmate’. The child notices the rails surround the school. The teacher tries to handle his anxiety. The child finds the games played by the other kids to be too physical and secluding. He takes note that the other children ‘must have been born in uniform’ or are always restrained and they are now discharging all the energy they had repressed