Geography Lesson
About the poet:
Zulfikar Ghose was born in India on 13th March 1935, in Sialkot. But he born before India - Pakistan partition time so now Sialkot was in Pakistan. He was a Pakistani American writer. One of his most famous work was Geography Lesson.
Parts of the poem:
According to the heights, the poem was divided into three parts at which the aeroplane was flying.
Rhyme Scheme:
part 1: abcd bcda
Repetition: A word or a phrase is used again in the same poem
"When the jet sprang into the sky, (line1)
when the jet sprang into the sky" (line 8)
Enjambment: A sentence carried over to the next line of the poem without any punctuation.
"it was clear why the city
had developed the way it had" (line 2&3)
"There seemed an inevitability
about what on ground had looked haphazard," (line 5&6 )
Alliteration: A repetition of a sound at the beginning of two connected words or adjacent words (next to each other or anywhere in the line)
Sprang, Sky (line 1 & 8)
seeing, scaled, six (line 4)
had, haphazard (line 6)
Part 2:
Rhyme scheme: abcd bcda
Repetition :
When the jet reached ten thousand feet, (line 1)
When the jet reached ten thousand feet (line 8)
Enjambment:
it was clear why the country
had cities where the rivers ran (line 2 &3)
had cities where the rivers ran
and why the valleys were populated( line 3&4)
The logic of geography -
that land and water attracted man -
was clearly delineated (line 5,6&7)
Alliteration:
rivers, ran (line 3)
valleys , were (line 4)
part : 3
abcc bcda
Meanings:
Sprang - to fly up
Inevitability: condition of being unavoidable
Summary:
When the jet flew up into the sky, he was looking outside from the window. The poet was far from the ground which was six inches from the ground (Six inches equal to one mile). The landscape was so messy and unorganised. So everything on the Earth looked very unplanned. Now he was flying in the jet, so now he came to know about why everything was so haphazard, so unplanned and without style. Finally, in the first part, he came to understand that the city was developed in a very unpleasant manner.
In the second stanza, when the jet was flying higher than the first stanza (six inches) at then thousand feet. He was in height so he saw the whole country from the jet. He asked why the people were made their house where the river flowing. And he saw that in between mountains and rivers people were placed their home. Generally, rivers were flown through the valleys but if the people were live around there means how the river will flow? When the jet was reached ten thousand feet, he came to know the fact of geography that man tends to live around water bodies and land (for fertile)
In the third stanza, the jet was flying six miles away from the Earth. Now he can saw the whole Earth and it was round in shape. The Earth had more seas than land. Because 3/4 covered by water in the world. It was difficult to understand for him that why human beings were hated each other and kill each other. From that height he could see different countries and different cities, it was literally divided into borders across the country. The wall also inside the hearts of every people.
