“The School Boy” is a rich and complex poem that has much to teach us about the importance of freedom, the joy of nature, and the power of education. Read More Plus One English Question and Answers.
“The School Boy” is a reminder that we should all cherish our childhood and the simple joys of life. It is also a reminder that we should never take our freedom for granted. We should also always strive to learn and grow, but we should never lose our sense of wonder and imagination.
The School Boy Question and Answers
Question 1.
What makes the boy think that school is a ‘cage’?
OR
Why does the schoolboy not take delight in learning in school in the poem ‘The School Boy’?
OR
Why does the boy find school life uninteresting in the poem ‘The School Boy’?
OR
In what way, according to the poet, are a schoolboy and a bird similar? What does the poet feel a school is like?
Answer:
In school, the boy has no joy of learning. He finds everything tedious. He wants to be free as a bird and be in the company of nature. But the school does not allow this to happen. There are strict teachers who deal with children in an authoritarian manner. Children are made to study books which they find uninteresting. That is why the boy considers the school a cage. Just as a bird that wants to be free and soar high, singing and flapping its wings, the schoolboy yearns for freedom from school. But just as the bird is caged, the schoolboy is compelled to be in school and just as a caged bird cannot sing, the schoolboy can have no sense of joy and remains in school with his wing drooping.
Question 2.
The boy loves to learn amidst nature. How does the poet bring it out in the poem?
Answer:
The boy is excited to wake up on a beautiful summer morning. He likes to rise early when the birds sing, the distant huntsman blows his horn and the skylark sings with him. He considers all these to be the sweet company. But all the happiness that he feels disappears when he realizes that he has to go to school when actually he wishes to enjoy the mirth of summer. It drives all joy away.
Question 3.
What is the plea of the schoolboy to his father and mother?
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What argument does the boy put across to his parents against going to school?
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What is the school boy’s prayer to his parents?
Answer:
The schoolboy appeals to the alternate authority of the parents to realise the predicament of the child and the dangers that lie in the suppression of natural learning. The boy complains to the highest authority – father and mother – and argues that if misery withers the tender plants, the beautiful buds and the newborn buds, summer can never be joyful. In other words, the speaker shows that a budding child is picked and swept off in the early stage of life in an ocean of sorrow, where there is no one to care for. Its state is compared to damaged nature that can bear no fruit and have no harvest. If care and concern rule over the plants, flowers, birds, such a summer will be dry and will bear no fruit.
The child enquires with his parents as to how they can win back what grief has destroyed. If the plants are withered due to the canker of grief, no fruit will be there in the season of autumn – mellowing years of one’s life. This implies that if childhood pleasures and joys are censored and truncated, adult life runs the danger of being utterly dry and unproductive. The old age would be miserable.
Question 4.
How does the poem bring out the contrast between the school boy’s experience inside and outside the school?
Answer:
Inside the school, he is like a caged bird. Outside he is as free as a singing skylark. On a summer morn, the schoolboy would like to rise early when the birds sing, the distant huntsman blows his horn and the skylark sings with him. He considers all these to be a sweet company. But he is not allowed to do this as he has to go to school and the school drives all joy away. The boy’s experience in school is full of fear and discouragement. The authoritarian way of teaching makes the boy sigh in dismay. His boredom and fear are reflected in the drooping manner in which he sits and the restlessness that he exhibits. The books give him no joy and the school makes him feel worn out.
Question 5.
How is the child’s growth ‘nipped and stripped’ of its joy in the springing day?
Answer:
The speaker in the poem is a schoolboy who is pleading with parents not to force children to spend their childhood in the rigid environment of a school. The speaker uses three inter-related images – the schoolboy, the bird and the plant to symbolically express the predicament of those children who spend their childhood in the confines of a school much against their will.
Using the metaphor of the seasons, the boy tries to convince parents that there is an intimate and sequential connection between the seasons and if they miss a season completely or do not enjoy the joys of a season they cannot face or enjoy the next season willingly. Here, the speaker uses the analogy of the (plant) buds to express his ideas. ‘Buds’ which normally appear in the spring season, develop into flowers enjoying the pleasant weather – fresh air, warm sunshine and plenty of open space to expand. Thus the pleasant weather of early summer is essential for the growth and development of buds.
In a similar way, children are like the buds of spring who love the joys of summer – birds’ singing, the skylark’s company and the huntsman blowing his horn. But, this feeling of paradise is taken away when they are sent to school where they spend the whole day. They no longer hear the birds singing and sit drooping like a bird in a cage under the watchful eyes of the teacher.
Thus forcing the children to go to school in spring is like ‘nipping’ the buds in their infancy and blowing the blossoms away. If children are stripped of their joy in spring, they cannot grow and mature into fruits in summer.
Metaphorically it means that if a man’s childhood were not spent happily, he will have problems of moving onto the next stage of life. There were no ‘blossoms’ in spring, so logically there will be no ‘fruits’ to harvest in summer. There is also the suggestion that once the ‘blasts of winter’ come they will not be able to bear up against them. This means to say that as we get older, life throws painful things at us and if we have been abused in our childhood then we will not have the strength to withstand those painful experiences.
Question 6.
How do the different seasons show the effects of the school on the child?
Answer:
The speaker in the poem is a schoolboy who is pleading with parents not to force children to spend their childhood in the rigid environment of a school. The speaker uses three inter-related images – the schoolboy, the bird and the plant to symbolically express the predicament of those children who spend their childhood in the confines of a school much against their will.
Using the metaphor of the seasons, the boy tries to convince parents that there is an intimate and sequential connection between the seasons and if they miss a season completely or do not enjoy the joys of a season they cannot face or enjoy the next season willingly. Here, the speaker uses the analogy of the (plant) buds to express his ideas. ‘Buds’ which normally appear in the spring season, develop into flowers enjoying the pleasant weather – fresh air, warm sunshine and plenty of open space to expand. Thus the pleasant weather of early summer is essential for the growth and development of buds.
In a similar way, children are like the buds of spring who love the joys of summer – birds’ singing, the skylark’s company and the huntsman blowing his horn. But, this feeling of paradise is taken away when they are sent to school where they spend the whole day. They no longer hear the birds singing and sit drooping like a bird in a cage under the watchful eyes of the teacher.
Thus forcing the children to go to school in spring is like ‘nipping’ the buds in their infancy and blowing the blossoms away. If children are stripped of their joy in spring, they cannot grow and mature into fruits in summer.
Metaphorically it means that if a man’s childhood were not spent happily, he will have problems of moving onto the next stage of life. There were no ‘blossoms’ in spring, so logically there will be no ‘fruits’ to harvest in summer. There is also the suggestion that once the ‘blasts of winter’ come they will not be able to bear up against them. This means to say that as we get older, life throws painful things at us and if we have been abused in our childhood then we will not have the strength to withstand those painful experiences.
Question 7.
Bring out the contrast between the boy’s experience inside and outside the school in ‘The School Boy’.
Answer:
In the poem ‘The School Boy’, the first stanza portrays the experience of the schoolboy outside the school, whereas the next three stanzas present the experience of the schoolboy inside the school.
In the first stanza, the speaker is a young boy who tells the reader that he feels joyful to rise in the fresh and delightful summer morning. He enjoys the chirping of the birds which announces the daybreak. The boy gets entertained by the company of the hunter who blows his horn from a distant field and the sweet lullabies of skylarks. Thus, the image of the child in the first stanza focuses on nature as free and unfettered. He is associated with the spring as a time for growth, freshness and playfulness.
But, in the next three stanzas, we get a totally different picture of the young schoolboy. Once the boy is inside the school, he loses his feeling of paradise. In the school, the birds sing no longer and the atmosphere is no longer pure or innocent. The boy is supervised by a cruel teacher and the young ones spend the day in sighing and dismay. The boy finds the school boring. He sits drooping in class. He claims that school hours are too long. He can’t find any interest in books. He describes the learning in school as a long ‘dreary shower’.
In the next stanza, the boy says that inside the school he feels like a caged bird that is forced to sing, and when he feels annoyed, he cannot but droop his tender wings. Thus, the bird imagery allows for the comparison between the schoolboy outside the school and the schoolboy inside the school.
The School Boy is a beautiful and thought-provoking poem that has much to teach us about ourselves and the world around us. I encourage you to read the poem again and to reflect on its message.