Summary of Keeping Quiet by Pablo Neruda

Shreya Bardhan September 27, 2014 CBSE- XII, Pablo Neruda, Poets with initials P, Poets with initials P to T

Keeping quiet is a poem written by Pablo Neruda in Spanish, which has been translated in English. In this poem, the Nobel Prize winner poet aims to
appeal to the readers to take a little time out of their busy schedules and life for a little introspection and retrospection. The title, Keeping Quiet, is
symbolic to stop all the activities, keeping quiet in the mind, not doing anything, but to question and understand the purpose of the world that
humans have created around themselves. Do go through the Summary of Keeping Quiet.
Neruda became known as a poet when he was 10 years old. He wrote in a variety of styles, including surrealist poems, historical epics, overtly
political manifestos, a prose autobiography, and passionate love poems such as the ones in his collection Twenty Love Poems and a Song of
Despair (1924). He often wrote in green ink, which was his personal symbol for desire and hope. The Colombian novelist Gabriel Garca Mrquez once
called Neruda the greatest poet of the 20th century in any language.Harold Bloom included Neruda as one of the 26 writers central to the Western
Tradition in his book The Western Canon.

Summary of Keeping Quiet by Pablo Neruda

Now we will count to twelve
and we will all keep still.
The poet asks everyone to count to twelve, and calm themselves down, and be still after the counting.
For once on the face of the Earth
lets not speak in any language,
lets stop for one second,
and not move our arms so much.
In these lines, the poet intends to dissolve the boundaries of cultures by prohibiting them from speaking any language. He asks them to be still for a
while, and not make any movements at all. He wants people to let their thoughts flow free without any rush or hurry.

It would be an exotic moment

without rush, without engines,
we would all be together
in a sudden strangeness.
The poet says that it would be a different feeling, or a different experience to see the world come to a halt, where everything stops, and everyone
comes together in strangeness, a sudden moment of inactivity, which the world has not often seen.
Fishermen in the cold sea
would not harm whales
and the man gathering salt
would look at his hurt hands.
By these lines, he means to bring brotherhood not only amongst humans, but also a unity amongst the nature and human beings, where the hunter
becomes kind to the prey. People stop hurting others in this while, and try to understand them, and reflect on their actions. The oppressors would
forget to hurt the oppressed, and the oppressed would forget their pains, and these two classes of people would come together in brotherhood.
Those who prepare green wars,
wars with gas, wars with fire,
victory with no survivors,
would put on clean clothes
and walk about with their
brothers
in the shade, doing nothing.
By green wars, here the poet means exploitation of nature for the selfish reasons of human beings, and by wars with gas, wars with fire, he means
to speak about the wars that humans had fought against each other in the past and present. He puts forward the irony of the wars, where everyone
experiences a loss, and the victory becomes a result for the sake of ending the wars. Neruda asks them to put on clean clothes, and walk with their
enemies like they are their brothers in the shade, which means peace and love towards nature, doing no violence.
What I want should not be
confused
with total inactivity.
Life is what it is about;
I want no truck with death.
The poet here tries to clear his intentions about being still, which does not mean total inactivity, according to him. Total inactivity would mean not
doing anything at all, but the poet wants the readers to be still, but think. The poet says that his message is about life, and he does not want people
to think about death.
If we were not so single-minded
about keeping our lives moving,
and for once could do nothing,
perhaps a huge silence
might interrupt this sadness
of never understanding ourselves
and of threatening ourselves with
death.
The poet here says that the basic purpose of all human beings is to stay alive, and hence they work towards it. This single-minded perspective about
survival has led to a mad rush to finish all the targets in life. If people slow down, and ponder about themselves, a huge silence would might come
between the sadness of never being able to recognise or appreciate ourselves. He says that death is a threat to us as we fear that we might not be
able to accomplish our tasks of survival.
Perhaps the Earth can teach us
as when everything seems dead
and later proves to be alive.
These lines provoke humans to learn from nature, as what is seen dead rejuvenates and lives again. The winter covers the tress with cold and it
appears as if there is no life left in the environment. But as the cycle of climate turns, the environment comes alive. The Earth goes through cycles of
life and death, and still continues its journey. It moves on, and becomes alive once again.
Now Ill count up to twelve
and you keep quiet and I will go.
Here, the poet tries to maintain the third person viewpoint towards the entire poem and thoughts, and he tries to quietly leave the scene, as he has
initiated the thought process and passed the message.
Maintaining a third person viewpoint to the entire dilemma, the poet leaves us on a train of thought. Now that he has passed on the message, his
work is done and he quietly leaves the scene. Hope you enjoyed reading the summary of Keeping Quiet by Pablo Neruda

Summary of My Mother at Sixty Six by Kamala Das:

The poem consists of 20 lines in total. These lines are not divided into stanzas. Here they are divided into meaningful segments in order to make the
poem easy to follow and understand.
Lines 1 4:
Driving from my parents
home to Cochin last Friday
morning, I saw my mother,
beside me,
In these lines, the poet recalls a trip back to Cochin from her holiday in her parents house the previous week. It was a Friday, and that morning, she
was driving with her mother next to her on the front seat.
Lines 5 10:
doze, open mouthed, her face
ashen like that
of a corpse and realised with pain
that she was as old as she
looked but soon
put that thought away, and
In these lines, the poet says that she was observing her mother who had fallen asleep on the front seat with her mouth slightly open. Her mothers
face was pale, and it reminded her of the nearly white faces of dead bodies. It is then that she comes to realize that her mother was not young any
longer, and that her appearance had caught up with her age. This was very hard for the poet to accept, and so she was determined to focus her
attention on something else.
Lines 11 15:
looked out at Young
Trees sprinting, the merry children spilling
out of their homes, but after the airports
security check, standing a few yards
away, I looked again at her, wan, pale
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In these lines, the poet says that she turned away from her aging mother and decided to look outside the windows of the car in which she was
driving. Outside, her eyes fell on the trees that the vehicle was passing by. The car was moving so fast that by way of relative motion, it seemed to
the poet that all the trees she could see were also running at full speed past her. It seemed that those trees must have been quite youthful if they
had the energy to move at such a fast pace. The poets eyes also feel on the children who were coming out of their houses, brimming over with their
excitement to get outside. The poet passed all these sights and reached the airport. Till then, her mind was distracted by the sights. However, after
the security check, she was standing a short distance away from her mother and again she chanced to notice the old woman. Just as before, her
mother appeared very pale and insipid.
Lines 16 20:
as a late winters moon and felt that old
familiar ache, my childhoods fear,
but all I said was, see you soon, Amma,
all I did was smile and smile and
smile
In these lines, the poet compares her mothers face with the sight of the moon on a night towards the end of winter. This made her recall the thing
she had been most afraid of during her childhood the fear that her mother would die one day. This was a fear that had plagued her many times
before, and it was plaguing her again now. However, she did not let that fear show itself on her face. Instead she put up a brave face and waved
goodbye to her mother. She assured her mother that they would be seeing each other again soon, and all the while, even though she was in great
agony, the smile never left her face.
Suggested Reading: My Mother at Sixty Six Analysis by Kamala Das

Solved Question and Answers:

1. Driving from my parents home to Cochin last Friday
Morning, I saw my mother, beside me,
doze, openmouthed, her face ashen like that
Of a corpse and realized with pain
That looked as old as she was
But soon put that thought far away.
a. Where is the poet at present?
The poet is on her way to Cochin Airport from her ancestral home. She is travelling in a car with her mother sitting beside her.
b. How does she describe her mother?
Kamala Das describes her mother as old, pale and senile. As she was asleep, the poet noticed that her mother looked very pale and colourless like a
dead body. She seemed to have lost the vitality of life.
c. What thoughts had she given away?
The poet has put away the haunting thoughts of losing her mother.
2. but after the airports
security check, standing a few yards
away, I looked again at her, wan,
pale as a late winters moon
a. Who is her here? Why does the poet look at her again?
Her is the poetess Kamala Das sixty six year old mother.
The poetess looked at her again for the last time to reassure herself that her mother is well. She drove away her thoughts of pain and fear at seeing
upon her mothers old age. It was a look of reassurance to meet her again.
b. Explain pale as a late winters moon
This is an example of a simile. The poet has compared her mothers face to a winters moon. Winter symbolizes death and a waning moon symbolizes
decay. Just like winter loses its magnificence and beauty when covered with fog and mist, similarly the poets mother has lost her youth, vitality and
have become inactive and withered.

An Elementary School Classroom in a Slum

Summary and Analysis
Abhishek Mitra September 29, 2016 CBSE Poems

The poem An Elementary School classroom in a Slum by Stephen Spender discusses the pathetic
situation of the students in the elementary classroom in the slum. The poet discusses the problems

and challenges of this situation and ends with a powerful rallying cry for equality, justice and
opportunity.
Stanza 1
Right at the beginning, the poet focuses on the sad and gloomy faces of the children in the classroom.
Gusty waves represent vitality, vigour and energy that these childrens faces are missing.
Rootless refers to a sense of uncertainty that these children face in their lives..no proper living
quarters, no social heritage or legacy that they can claim as their own, a sense of being cast adrift, a
sense of alienation and without a proper foothold in society or life.
Weeds are unwanted and considered a nuisance that need to be removed. Similarly, these slum
children are perceived as worthless things to be removed from societys garden.
Rootless weeds are also used to describe the childrens hair. The uncombed, unwashed, dry, dirty hair
around their faces are like these weeds which havent managed to spread its roots sufficiently deep or
far to seek out the nutrients to flourish.
Pallor refers to a paleness of the face. Their faces have a dry, pale and malnourished look, hence the
word is used.

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The poet then describes a few students in the classroom.

He first mentions a tall girl with a weighed down head. Tall may denote that she is older than her
classmates and due to her age has to do a larger share of housework than the other students. Hence
she is tired and drowsy.
Metaphorically, her head may be bowed down with feelings of shame, dejection, defeat due to her
poverty and/or due to the fact that she is still stuck in an elementary class
He next refers to a boy who is extremely thin due to malnourishment.
The boys eyes look like that of a rat due to his extremely thin face.

At the back of the gloomy classroom sits an unnoticed sweet young boy. He is still too young to have
realised the sad realities of his existence. He is daydreaming of playing with squirrels in his treehouse.
Stanza 2
Sour cream walls refer to the colour of the walls which are probably simply whitewashed.
Donations probably refer to a donation box which is on a shelf on the wall. A bust of William
Shakespeare also adorns the shelf on the wall.
Also on the wall is the picture of a city skyline at dawn.
Tyrol is a state in Austria which has some incredibly picturesque valleys full of flowers. A beautiful
picture of such a Tyrolese valley adorns the whitewashed walls of the school.
A world map hangs on the wall of the classroom. This map is displaying the world to these children
.But for these children, the slum outside their classroom window represents their word. Their future is
uncertain. Their lives are restricted to the narrow street where their slum is situated.
Lead sky refers to the dull grayish sky that seems to turn the street into a prison for these children.
This slum is far away literally and metaphorically from the beautiful natural landscapes around the
world.
Stanza 3
Shakespeares works deal with grand tales often set in distant lands featuring a variety of people. The
map tells the children of far of countries and create a desire for exploration. But for these slum
children such distant lands and adventures are nothing but harmful temptations that will lead them to
steal in order to get the necessary money to indulge in these far off adventures. For these children live
in tiny dwellings through the foggy days and long dark nights.
The poet refers to their slum as a slag heap. Slag is a waste by product of coal mining and when
arranged in a heap, it is referred to as a slag heap. According to the poet, this slum contains the
rejects or waste of society.
The slum children, being of poor families do not get sufficient food to eat. Hence they are nothing but
skin and bones. The outlines of the skeleton can be seen through their skin.
Their spectecles are not new, but mended with glass that remind the poet of pieces of glass bottles
stuck on the top of stone walls as an anti-theft measure.
For these slum children, ime and space consists of nothing but a slum on which sits a fog.
The poet is deeply moved by their condition and implores to the map makers to fill the world map with
enormous slums so that the slum children do not feel the sadness and pain or succumb to the
temptations that a view of the wider world may bring.
Stanza 4
Unless some steps are taken by people in authority and outsiders, such as governor, teacher,
inspector, visitor, the children will never get a taste of the beautiful wider world beyond their slum. The
world map becomes their only window to the outside world. But such windows do not allow them the
access to look within. Catacombs are underground passageways. The poet compares the
inaccessibility of the windows to being lost or trapped in such an underground maze of passages.
The poet implores the figures of authority and the readers to break down the walls and shackles hat
hold back these children and show them green fields of the world beyond. The poet invokes images of
golden sands of a beach under a blue sky facing out to an open blue sea. The poet requests the figures
of authority to allow these children to explore the world not only through the white leaves of a book,
but also the green leaves of nature.
The poet ends with a powerful evocative declaration. He states that the people who shall live with the
same energy, vim and vigour as the sun will be the ones to become great and rise above others and
create history.

He hopes that with the right kind of support and encouragement, the slum children will rise to that
greatness.

An Elementary School Classroom in a Slum Analysis and Theme

The poem deals with themes of poverty and alienation among children living in a slum. The poet uses
the setting of an elementary school classroom located in a slum to explore these themes and
concludes with a rallying cry for improvement in the lives of the slum children.
In the first stanza, the poet introduces us to the students in the classroom and describes some of
them. The main underlying theme here is their extreme poverty and the consequent lack of any sort of
enthusiasm with the sole exception of a little boy, who still retains some of his innocence. In the
second stanza, the poet describes the various items in the classroom. However at the end of the
stanza, he comments on the hopelessness in the childrens lives.
In the third stanza, the poet reflects that the temptations provided by the various items in the
classroom such as maps, might tempt the children to steal. He goes on to describe in detail, the
pathetic conditions in the day to day lives of these children.
In the fourth and final stanza, the poet raises a rallying cry for change. He urges the powers that be
and perhaps the reader too, to remove the metaphorical walls that hold back these children
condemning them to a life of abject poverty. He imagines a future where these children will lead
happy, free and knowledgeable lives. The theme in this paragraph is that of change and optimism.