CHILDREN IN THE DARKNESS
This poem depicts the children during war. It is written in third person point and not first person because a child cannot comprehend what is happening around them. The poem is written four lines per stanza and is consistent in its pattern.
The first stanza implies that the evil people will manipulate some of the unfortunate children, probably from afghanistan, and teach them to kill and fight. This is evident from "Who someone will teach to fight".
The second stanza gives imagery of a door, where the key is lost. that means that the children will have no freedom, and will be bounded by the chains of war. "Chalk and blackboard" represent education. Education the children should be having, but instead they are fighting in the darkness. That is a form of irony, in a sense that they are fighting, when education teaches "no violence".
In the third stanza, the persona asks a series of questions. This gives the impression the persona is confused. "Could we light a candle, could we give them half a chance", this question sets the reader thinking. The children cannot turn back, even if a chance is given. They cannot change their perception that killing is normal. "could we teach them to read, could we teach them to dance?", they are only obsessed with killing, they cannot step out of the darkness.
In the fourth stanza the persona is resigned. "Or could the war consume them", this implies that they cannot step out in the craze of the war. "An endless thirsty hole", this is a metophor to the war times, it is an endless thirsty hole because it makes man lose their humanity, and just kill.
The last stanza shows the fates of these children; Beaten, consumed, controlled, by war.
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