Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Children in the Darkness

Children in the Darkness

There are children in the darkness
Who have not seen the light
There are children in the darkness
Who someone will teach to fight

Chalk and blackboards will not be
To this door there is no key
From this life they can not flee
And these children are not free

Could we simply light a candle
Could we give them half a chance
Could we teach them how to read
Could we teach them how to dance

Or will a war consume them
Their body and their soul
Will their life and blood be poured
Down some endless thirsty hole

Back into the darkness
From which there is no flight
Back into the darkness
Into which there shines no light

TASK 1
Henry M Bechtold was in Vietnam during 1967 – 1968, when he witnessed the raging war. He visits Vietnam from time to time, and this poem was written in 2009/2010, while he was on his visit to Vietnam. At that time, he was in his hotel room in Saigon and he was trying to write a poem about girls who work in the park and how badly men treat them.

However, he was getting frustrated as he could not think of anything to write. Then, from the television, he saw the image of a small boy with a helmet and an automatic rifle in the background of a news programme.

He was inspired by this image and quickly penned down his thoughts, resulting in this poem.

The poem talks about children who are suffering because of war outbreak, how they are deprived of their chance to live as normal kids, and how they will be consumed by the "darkness".

TASK 2
"There are children in the darkness
Who have not seen the light
There are children in the darkness
Who someone will teach to fight "

The poem starts off with a statement which reinforces the idea that there are children “in the darkness”. It then tells us that the children have not seen the “light” and tells us that eventually someone will teach them how to fight.

Meaning:
In this stanza, we see that the entire mood of the poem is already set, as very dark and hopeless. Here in the poem, the darkness means that the children are confined, trapped in a horrible situation and are in despair. Next we understand that they “have not seen the light”. Interestingly, not seeing “light” might be due to being in the darkness. However, I feel that the “light” here represents the children’s ray of hope and salvation. This not only adds on the poem’s feeling of despair, it also further emphasize on the feelings of the children.

In the next two stanza we read that someone will teach the children how to fight. At first i was slightly confused by this statement, because I interpreted it as someone will eventually teach the children how to fend for themselves. However, after considering the meaning’s contrast with the mood and theme of the poem, I decided that it had a 2nd meaning: the children will all grow up to be trained and sent to war, and possibly sacrifice their life for the country.

Literary Devices:
1. Contrast between darkness and light
Allows the poem to be more impactful with the stark contrast between the positive and the negative in such a short time.

2. Rhyme Scheme between 2nd line and 4th line
Rhyming the two ending words might be the author’s attempt to link the two words together.

3. Metaphors
Light can be a possible metaphor for salvation and hope whereas darkness might represent the despair of the children.

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"Chalk and blackboards will not be
To this door there is no key
From this life they cannot flee
And these children are not free"

Meaning:
In this stanza we read that “chalk and blackboards will not be”. Chalk and blackboard are frequently used items in school, where children are given a proper education. I feel that these two items are mentioned and together with “will not be”, hints to us that going to school “will not be” the fate of the children, and instead they will just go to war and become victims (further emphasizing on the possible meaning of the last line of stanza 1)
Next, we read that “to this door there is no key”. To me, I interpreted this key as the solution to the burden of the children, the key that can relieve the children. However, if the door represents the sufferings of the children, then “to this door there is no key” means that there will be no end to the suffering of the children. This idea is further emphasized by the next 2 lines, which says that the children are still not free and they will not be able to escape this fate of theirs (“From this life they cannot flee”).

Literary devices:
1. Chalk and Blackboards as representations of a school.
2. Door as a metaphor for the sufferings of the children and the key as a metaphor for the solution to their sufferings
3. Rhyme scheme between 1st, 3rd and 4th line. Linking up the words in the 3rd and 4th line, expressing the idea of being carefree (flee and free).

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"Could we simply light a candle
Could we give them half a chance
Could we teach them how to read
Could we teach them how to dance"

Meaning:
This is a very interesting stanza because each of the 4 lines is a rhetorical question. This stanza is closely related to the next stanza as there is a very big contrast between the tone, mood and ideas presented. In this stanza, we see the normal activities that a normal child would carry out: learn how to read, learn how to dance. We also are able to infer that the students are not even given a chance to do all these things, because of the 2nd line “could we give them half a chance”.

Literary Devices:
1. Rhetorical questions in each line of the stanza.

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"Or will a war consume them
Their body and their soul
Will their life and blood be poured
Down some endless thirsty hole"

Meaning:
This stanza is placed directly after the 3rd stanza to show the direct contrast between the two. In this stanza, we see that the fate of the children will not be the same as a stereotype child’s: to dance and to read. Instead, they will be forced to go to war, to be consumed, to be sent to their own graves. This thus brings about their body and their soul being “poured down some endless thirsty hole”.
Note that the endless thirsty hole might be a metaphor for war. War is endless and it is forever blood thirsty; children will be sent to their own graves, and it is a vicious cycle that will never end.

Literary Devices:
1. Personification
War will consume them: It personifies war by attaching it to an action of eating and thus portrays how ferocious war is through the choice of words.
2. Possible metaphor of “endless thirsty hole”
3. Rhyme Scheme of 2nd line and 4th line.
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"Back into the darkness
From which there is no flight
Back into the darkness
Into which there shines no light"

Meaning:
In my opinion this is a very ambiguous stanza. The way I interpreted it would be that it continues from the 4th stanza, after the children are down the “endless thirsty hole”. In that case, the “darkness” now would symbolize death, which is coincidentally represented by black also. We also once again, see the repetition of the ideas presented in the 1st stanza, such as the darkness being void of light.

Literary devices:
1. Rhyme between 2nd and 4th line
2. Repetition of the theme of the poem, “Back into the darkness”, possibly to place emphasis on it.
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Overall:
Point of View of poem: Author's Point of View
Situation and Setting poem: A war setting whereby children's only fate is to go to war and meet their own demise. Set probably in Vietnam, where the poet came from.

Personal Response:
Serveral parts of the poem was to highlight the contrasting ideas between certain stanza/ lines. However I feel that the contrast was not accompanied by a wide use of literary devices and thus it was not as impactful. However, I personally like this poem alot because of some of the interesting metaphor such as endless thirsty hole. Overall, this is a nice poem but it can be further heightened by a wider use of literary devices.