How does the poet present the idea of being left alone and show how the world of the
child is affected by the actions of adults?
The poem, “Half Past Two”, is a poem about how a young child committed an
unknown wrong and was left alone for a long time in school, not knowing the reason he
was, and the child didn’t know how to comprehend the time when the punishment
prolonged. The child’s perception of life around him was changed by the foolish action
of the teacher. The child wasn’t worried about his actions or how his parents would
react, but the amount of time he had spent alone. But, how does the writer portray the
idea of being alone? How does the writer portray how the actions of the teacher
affected the child’s world, concerns, and interactions?
In the poem, “Half Past Two”, the author makes use of childish jargon and
repetition of unnecessary capitalization to portray the stress of a young child who has
been left alone and how his world has been affected by this teacher. The author
introduces the poem with a fairytale quote “Once upon a” followed up with
“schooltime” to show how young this child was. The author juxtaposes fantasy of
fairytale with the harshness of school to show how the child reacted to being left alone
and how his world had changed. The author does this to make the child a symbol of
innocence in comparison to the harshness of adulthood. The author capitalizes
“Something”, “Very”, “Wrong”, twice in the poem to stress how this child was being
punished for so long that he eventually forgot what it was and was no longer
concerned. The author capitalises “She” to present the importance of the teacher and
the god-like perception of the teacher by the student. The author uses neologism in
imaginative words such as “tvtime”, “teatime” etc to show how young this child is, his
lack of vocabulary, creates an innocent view of the child. The neologism creates new
words that allow the reader to relate to the child.
The author uses Repetition to present the idea of being left alone, and show
how the child’s world is affected by the actions of the teacher. The author repeats
“time” show emphasise how long the punishment time was, and to stress that this child
knows the time, but doesn’t know how to tell time. The author also repeats the word
“forgot”. “Forgot” is repeated to present how foolish and careless the teacher is for
leaving the child alone for so long. The author also repeats the word “escaped” to
suggest that this child felt his punishment was almost as being in a trap, or a cage. The
author repeats “Something Very Wrong” to emphasise the innocence of the child
along with the fear and concern he feels. “Something Very Wrong” is also repeated to
stress that this child is being punished with no knowledge of the offence he has
committed. This repetition of doing something wrong refers to the disciplinary nature
of the educational system. Children are always being punished for doing something
wrong but the adults never have time to sit and talk and explain to the child so that he
doesn’t commit the mistake again.
The form of U. A. Fanthorpe’s poem “Half Past Two” is free verse. The
free-flowing style emphasises the child’s dreamy or fairytale state of mind during this
long time being alone. In his timeless zone, he is free to roam with no concerns. There
is no set rhythm or rhyme scheme to portray the child’s simple language. The child’s
mind doesn’t follow a set routine along with how the poem doesn’t follow the set
routine of rhythm or rhyme. The lines in the poem are very simple, to easily express the
thoughts of the young child’s world. Enjambment is throughout the poem. Most of the
lines are very long whereas the stanzas are very long. This emphasises the long, infinite,
clock ticking.
Personification is used throughout the poem to present the idea of being alone
and show how the world of the child was affected by the teacher. In stanza 6, the boy
expresses how he comprehends the clock. Fanthrope uses personification “long legs”
and “little eyes” to give the reader a sense of childishness and innocence, along with
showing the clock-like animation features. The use of personification makes the poem
sound like a fairytale, and brings the clock alive and emphasises the imagination of the
child. This personification of the clock connects with the neologism to engage the
reader in the child imagination during this timeless zone while being alone. “But he
couldn’t click its language” suggests that understanding time for the child was as
difficult as learning a new language through portraying time through the child’s
interpretation. The author also refers to the teacher entering the room as “scuttling in”.
This animal-like interpretation of teacher shows how the student perceives the teacher
as a predator or as an insect.
The main tone in the poem “Half Past Two” is nostalgic. From stanzas one to
two the tone is nostalgic. In stanza 3 the tone shifts to a disregarding tone. This is
indicated by the word forgotten. This action of forgetting creates a more innocent tone
towards the boy. The tone is also innocent even though the boy is guilty of his actions.
In stanza 5, the innocence of the boy is indicated with the neologic word
“Timeformykisstime”. This is used to show how clueless the boy was that of what time
it was. In stanza 7 the tone shifts to a nostalgic tone. This is shown with solace from the
adult perspective. The tone is also triumphant as the boy “escaped” the confinement
of the teacher’s punishment. This followed up with an image of freedom in the quote
“air outside the window”. After this in stanza 9, the audience is brought back into
conventional time. The tone then shifts to dismissive, as the teacher says “Run along”.
In the last stanza, the author says “he never forgot”, to show how effective this
experience with punishment and time was to him. This was an important moment for
this young man. The metaphor of “clockless land” and “tickles” are both used to show
how wonderful the freedom of childhood is. And this should never be taken away or
interfered with a child. Fanthorpe draws her experience of teaching to describe the
scene through the child’s world. Fanthrope uses this boy as a symbol of how children’s
worlds’ and childhood are affected by the strict, harsh education system. She portrays
this through the child’s eyes, voice, and thoughts.