Scribd
Upload
5K views17 pages

Childhood - Presentation

The poet reflects on when exactly he lost his childhood. He wonders if it was when he realized that concepts like Heaven and Hell could not literally be found on a map. Or if it was when he noticed the hypocrisy of adults who preached love but did not act lovingly. Finally, he muses that perhaps his childhood ended when he understood his own mind and individuality. In the end, he concludes that his childhood has gone to some forgotten place that now resides only in an infant's innocent face.

Uploaded by

Smita Srivastava
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
5K views17 pages

Childhood - Presentation

The poet reflects on when exactly he lost his childhood. He wonders if it was when he realized that concepts like Heaven and Hell could not literally be found on a map. Or if it was when he noticed the hypocrisy of adults who preached love but did not act lovingly. Finally, he muses that perhaps his childhood ended when he understood his own mind and individuality. In the end, he concludes that his childhood has gone to some forgotten place that now resides only in an infant's innocent face.

Uploaded by

Smita Srivastava
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 17

CHILDHOOD

MARKUS NATTEN
When did my childhood go?
Was it the day I ceased to be eleven,
Was it the time I realised that Hell and Heaven,
Could not be found in Geography,
And therefore could not be,
Was that the day!
The poet is curious to know when he lost his childhood. He
tries to find out the answer of his own question.

He feels it was
perhaps that day
when he discovered
the theories of
Heaven and Hell and
that Geography did
not provide him any
information about the
existence of such
place.
LET’S REVISE
What did the speaker learn about the existence
of Heaven and Hell ?
When did my childhood go?
Was it the time I realised that adults were not
all they seemed to be,
They talked of love and preached of love,
But did not act so lovingly,
Was that the day!
In this stanza, the poet figures out that the adults around him did not practice what
they usually preached. They taught others to be loving and caring when they
themselves were violent and mean.

He wonders about the day when he started seeing the world with a new perception that
adults are hypocrites and are not how they seemed to be. The adults who talked of love
and preached of love and yet never behaved so lovingly. They are double-faced in
reality. Was that the day when his childhood go?
LET’S REVISE

How did the speaker realise the hypocrisy of the


adults?
When did my childhood go?
Was it when I found my mind
was really mine,
To use whichever way I
choose,
Producing thoughts that were
not those of other people
But my own, and mine alone
Was that the day!
He asked himself about possibilities.
He wonders about the day he realized
that his mind was his own and could use it the way he wants.
When he realized that he could produce
his own thoughts which were not bound by anyone.
When he sensed his own individuality
and a separate personality
and he realised that this might have been
the time he lost his childhood innocence completely.
LET’S REVISE
How did the realization of being the master of
his own mind helped him ?
Where did my childhood
go?
It went to some forgotten
place,
That’s hidden in an
infant’s face,
That’s all I know.
Now,the poet changes his question. From wondering at what point in time, he had
lost his childhood, the poet now wonders where it went.
The last three lines may be interpreted in two ways.
★ The childhood had gone to some forgotten place which will never come
back.
★ The poet claims that his childhood is nothing more than a long lost
memory. He recalls his infancy and believes that his true childhood
resides there, in that infant's face, and that innocence cannot resurface
in this lifetime.
★ The poet believes that his childhood has become nothing more than
a memory for him but has become the reality of some other infant.
Innocence is a cyclical process where lost from one person, it
travels to another, finding residence there. Thus, till date, adults
can easily recall and seem to almost relive their own childhood,
through an infant in their lives.
Literary device:
Rhyme Scheme – the rhyme scheme used in the poem ‘Childhood’ is
ABBCCD.
Refrain – a group of phrase which is repeated in the poem
When did my childhood go?
Was that the day!

Individuality – In stanza 3, the poet realized that he can use his own
mind and can produce his own thoughts. He discovered a sense of
individuality in himself.
❖ Antithesis – where two opposite words are used together in a
sentence in a poem
Hell and Heaven
❖ Alliteration – The occurrence of the same letter of sound at the
beginning of closely connected words
My mind
Whichever way
Thoughts that
❖ Inversion – when the subject-verb order is reversed
To use whichever way I choose

You might also like

pFad - Phonifier reborn

Pfad - The Proxy pFad of © 2024 Garber Painting. All rights reserved.

Note: This service is not intended for secure transactions such as banking, social media, email, or purchasing. Use at your own risk. We assume no liability whatsoever for broken pages.


Alternative Proxies:

Alternative Proxy

pFad Proxy

pFad v3 Proxy

pFad v4 Proxy