Sample Paper on the Boy Without a Name

From the poems that I have studied I feel that the feelings conveyed by the poets show a mixed view of school days. In both ‘The Boy Without a Name’ by Allan Ahlberg and ‘Back in the Playground Blues’ by Adrian Mitchell, a negative outlook on school is shown but in the poem ‘In Mrs Tilcher’s Class’ by Carol Ann Duffy, a much more positive vibe is being sent out about school. In the poem ‘A Boy Without a Name’, the speaker is the bully.

The bully is looking back at his school experiences and he remembers a boy who everyone ignored because he had a skin condition.

As he reflects on this he realises that he cannot remember the boy’s name. The title clearly confirms this statement. The fact that the speaker can remember the names of other children and not the name of his victim shows the inhumanity of the bully when he was younger and how he treated the boy as if he were inferior to himself.

The structure of the poem is consistent throughout. The rhythm of the poem is steady; this is possibly to show the consistency of the bullying that the boy received.

The poem has limited rhyming. This is probably because the poem is similar to a speech and the speaker would prefer to keep the rhyming in the poem as subtle as possible so as not to take the seriousness away from what he is talking about. The language that Ahlberg uses emphasises the rejection experienced by the boy.

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The fact that the children would only be seen “sharing a ruler under protest” gives us a good understanding of how the boy was treated on a daily basis.

Also, the language used is of a remorseful nature as the speaker, who is now an adult, is looking back and thinking, “I hope his mother loved him,” indicating that during the victim’s childhood no one else did. The way the speaker described the severity of the boy’s skin condition as “red” and “raw” also shows the sympathy that he has for the boy now. It expresses how bad the boy’s medical condition was and how serious it was, it is a key comparison to the treatment that the boy received by his peers.

It helps us to visualise the horror of the boy’s condition, which again, helps us to understand and to sympathise with the victim. The poem ‘Back in the Playground Blues’ is similar to ‘The Boy Without a Name’ in the sense that it portrays a negative image of school. This poem is about the school playground. In this case it is known as the ‘Killing Ground’ due to the severe bullying which the ‘Rulers’ inflicted on their victims, for no apparent reason. This poem describes the feelings of one particular victim. The structure of this poem is interesting, as it does not stay the same throughout.

The rhythm of the first stanza is slow to show that the person is reflecting back on their childhood. Also, the shorter sentences are said separately to emphasise the weakness of the victim. The second stanza is said softly and timidly to show the vulnerability of the victim. The rhythm in the third stanza is said as a singsong or taunt at the victim. It is reinforcing the reasons why the person gets bullied on to them. “Get it for being chicken Get it for fighting back… ” are good examples of what may have been said by the bullies.

This shows how the victims were taunted. The final stanza of the poem is a conclusion of the rest of the poem. We can see this in the line, “It prepares them for a lifetime. ” The last stanza is also said like a rhyme to get at the victim. It is said deeply to add a chill to the poem. The rhythm is a key factor in this poem as it sets the mood and tone. In the third stanza, which is almost like a taunt, we get a sense of how the bullies victimised the boy. The language that Mitchell has used shows great emphasis on the fear experienced by the speaker.

The language used shows a great sense of fear, vulnerability and unexpectancy. Words such as ‘black’ and ‘broken’ create a sense of darkness and violence. The fact that the playground id described as “three miles long and… five miles wide” shows how vulnerable the speaker feels, as we know that these measurements were merely exaggerated to show the great fear that the victim is feeling. The title of the poem also suggests that it was a time of oppression for the speaker as the word ‘blues’ originates from the era of black slavery in America.

The blues was a type of music created by the black slaves as their way of expressing their sadness and oppression on the injustice towards themselves. In the poem, ‘In Mrs Tilcher’s Class’ the outlook of school life is completely different to the previous two poems. It sends out a message that school is a good place. The speaker in this poem has had happy experiences in school compared to the previous two speakers. This poem is about a child who is influenced by their schoolteacher but with time they mature and feel that they do not need school and are “impatient to be grown.

The structure of this poem stays consistent. This may be used to show the stability of school compared to the outside world and also to show that school is a regimented place and has set rules and guidelines. The language used is very childlike and immature at the beginning of the poem. Words such as ‘sugar paper’ and ‘coloured paper’ represent the innocence of the child and show how naive the child is. In this poem we can see that by using these words that the child sees school as a place of enjoyment rather than of work.

Although the poem is quite childlike, there are many mature words such as ‘enthralling’ and ‘tangible’, which shows that the person is speaking when they are much older and it shows how much the person has matured since the time that the poem is set. It also shows that the person has now been educated enough to not want to attend school or possibly to leave school as they can express themselves using a wider vocabulary for example. The uses of childhood images are very effective.

The phrase “she’d left a good gold star by your name,” almost brings you back to your own childhood when you had similar experiences. Duffy’s use of these images makes it easier for the reader to relate to the experiences of the speaker. The huge jump from childhood straight to adulthood is put in to show how quickly children grow up. One day they are in school getting gold stars and the next day they are at the stage where they hate school and they feel that they are too mature to go to school and they become more independent and rebellious. This poem sends this message out to all who read it.

The poem has a steady rhythm, which again is used to create a sense of stability and regimentation, which is a key part of school especially primary school. After studying these three poems, I feel that the statement, ‘school days are the best days of our lives’ could easily be argued both ways but I feel in the case of the three poems the bad experiences override the good experiences of school days and so on the basis of the three poems that I have studied I feel that this statement could be well argued and firmly backed up by evidence from the poems.