Summary of poem pencil story
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Answer:
The poem ‘The Pencil’s Story7, written by Florence Hoatson, is a symbolic poem, which highlights how even small things can teach us a lesson in our life. In the poem, a pencil called H and B, is narrating its own story. It is the story of the pencil’s journey from mantelpiece to the holder just as our journey beams from birth and ends with death. The theme of the poem is centered on the usefulness of life. The story of the pencil called H and B (hard and black) begins when it is a little pencil and lies upon the mantelpiece, so as to be seen by everyone. It is used almost forty times a day. So it feels very tired. The pencil feels happy as it is very useful to the whole family because Tommy, the young child of the family, uses it to draw untidy pictures from submarines to aeroplanes to cabbages; Miss Phyllis uses it to write beautiful letters; mother uses it to do her washing list and father uses it to note down the scores of the game. However the pencil feels sad because it is never allowed to grow, it is made smaller and smaller by sharpening it. It is shortened every day. When the knife begins to sharpen it, which is very painful, it keeps quiet because the point has to be sharp. But the pencil is very proud of its achievement. Though its writing is dark, it is very useful and each time someone uses it, it leaves a mark. At the end of the poem, the pencil, when it becomes short and useless, reaches the holder. That is the end of the pencil’s journey. Thus the poem ‘The Pencil’s Story7 is a very symbolic poem. Through this poem, the poet seems to give the message that our life should be like the pencil. A pencil suffers pain (when it is sharpened) to make itself brighter. The more it is used, the smaller it becomes but it would have left its mark whenever or whatever is written with it. This aspect gives the message that the more good we become, the more good others feel about us. The pains and sufferings in our life make us better and wise human beings.
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