Task 2 Language Arts Home Learning: Children in the darkness

I feel that the poem is written in the point of view of someone who knows the common knowledge whereby children are innocent and pure and is able to differentiate them, most probably being an adult as an adult is wise enough to know these differences. Through the poem, the poet distinguished and has drawn a clear line between a ‘normal’ child to the one in the picture.

The situation is during war or during the mobilization. As the country does not want to lose the war, however they have not enough able man, hence they mobilized innocent children to fight in the war. In the poem, it mentioned that,” From this life they cannot flee”. And the whole of stanza 3. This shows the feelings and thoughts of the children and those not. The children felt that it was their fate to fight in the war. Also, there was a sense of pity inside as innocent children’s’ fate was to serve and most likely die in a war. Stanza 3 showed the emotion whereby asking rhetorical questions, showing that the children were hopeless and their ‘normal’ lives will be gone forever. Sort of like saying that they were ‘goners”. The whole poem is evoking a sense of hopelessness as throughout the poem, the poet emphasized the hopelessness of the children and us as we could no prevent this from happening.

The poet used repetition, “the darkness”. The poet repeated this phrase to make an impact that there was no justice to the world as if there is, the children would not have gone to war. In contrast with darkness, there is also light. Light in this poem I feel that it represents justice. Hence when the children have not seen the light, this implies that there is no justice here as it is very cruel to bring the children to take up arms. The word ‘consume’ is used here, meaning that the children is totally conquered by darkness, hence giving the impact that there is totally no hope or justice here. At the last stanza, ‘back in the darkness’ is used to show that there is no way out of the darkness but back in there. Overall, the words and diction used in this poem is very accurate as it brings out the feeling of hopelessness and creates a deep impact on us as readers.

After reading this poem, I feel that it relates me to the reality that life is unfair. Someone may be having the best of life, with wealth, and leading a carefree life. However on the other side of the world, there is someone who is poor and living a life of troubles and maybe danger. A question also appears in my head, “Why can’t other people be the same as us?” The world is unfair as everyone has a different fate. Regarding war, I feel that it is cruel and horrific as it absorbs life and makes people war-mad, until the point that children have to enter this war. It kills with no one winning in the end and young, innocent children’s life is sacrificed through this evil process.

Thank you.