Online lesson Home Learning.

"Children in the Darkness" by Henry M Bechtold was written in 2010. He probably was a war soldier in the Vietnam war, as he stated that " My soul lies with Vietnam", which implies that he has, maybe gone through the suffering, and find it difficult to adapt back to his homeland.


This poem shows very conflicting images of the mindset of Henry, of what should actually be the life of a normal child, and what is the life of a suffering child in war. The first stanza displays complete ignorance, and that the children, are so innocuous, that they evoke a sense of sympathy and feel, from the audience. Soldiers, in war, fight out of loyalty, nationalism, and patriotism, like the Japanese soldiers in the World War 2. ( not saying that their doings were correct). However, the first stanza seems to implicate that the children, the young innocent children, are being taught to fight, and is the sole thing their learning, their light. 


The second stanza is rather expressing more of the first, that children are taught to fight. In "chalk and blackboards will not be" , it seems to say that children now will not be taught literacy in schools, but will be war-driven, and brought up to fight. It more or less talks about the constraint, and lack of liberty to to what they want, and are only restricted to war.


The next stanza implies that, whether the children suffering in war, they have no rights to do what normal children do, like " give them a candle" or "teach them how to read". It asks, if suffering children, can or cannot be taught what normal children can do. Obviously, "No".


The next stanza, is rather a more descriptive stanza, that shows them what they have to go through, and conflicts it with what normal children have to go through. Though exaggerated and emphasised, it becomes logical, that the war will consume them, and that more and more children will grow up, fighting- then dying.


The last stanza, gives a concluding point of view, that children once in war, will never be the same as normal children, and are destroyed by the devastating experiences and circumstances of war.