This poem is written by U. A. Fanthorpe. It looks like a child has written it. The boy was told to stay behind until half past two but this has no meaning because he doesn’t know how to read time. There is repetition of doing something wrong pointing to the punitive nature of educational system. Children are always being punished for doing something wrong. Adults never have time to sit and talk and explain to the kid so that he doesn’t repeat the mistake again. Kids are innocent. They don’t understand and repeatedly commit same mistake. Being angry the teacher punished the little boy oblivious of the fact that he /she never taught him the notion of time.
It is a poem dealing with the concept of time from a child’s perspective. He was detained at school until half past two as mode of punishment for some wrongdoing. This poem presents us how the kid receives the punishment. It is a very interesting and innocent poem. And the title is very appropriate.
It is the poet presenting the poem. We have the poet’s voice throughout. He is depicting the psychology of a little kid. He always addresses hi persona as ‘HE’ which proves that it is not the I-figure narrating but the poet presenting a particular episode in the life of his persona when he was a kid.
The little boy doesn’t know why he was being punished because he waited patiently lost in his imaginary world. He was very scared of being wicked again. So he didn’t dare ask why he had to wait until half past two. And he was also confused coz he never heard of ‘half past two’ before. He knew of other times like TVtime, gettinguptime but no half past two time. Maybe he never covered any lesson on time or how to read a clock.
There is personification of time in the poem. The technique personification is used to give human attributes to things to render them more vivid. Here time is personified to reflect the child’s perspective. Little children do not have enough maturity. So they