For Elkana – Class 11 English Chapter 16 Notes & NCERT PDF

About the Poet

Nissim Ezekiel (1924–2004) was born in Mumbai and is perhaps the best-known Indian poet writing in English. He studied at Wilson College, Bombay and later at Birkbeck College, London. He was a professor of American Literature at Bombay University, wrote several poems and some plays, was a skilled critic, and lectured at many universities in the USA and UK.

The Poem in Brief

"For Elkana" is a warm, gently humorous picture of an ordinary family evening. A husband and wife sit on their lawn on an April evening; the wife comments on small household matters; their seven-year-old son firmly demands his dinner "now"; the parents try to discipline him; the boy's logic wins; and the wife's laughter brings the family together as they go inside. The title suggests the poem is addressed to Elkana, the child.

Stanza-wise Meaning

The idyllic evening

The warm April evening

tempts us to the breezes

sauntering across the lawn.

Breezes "sauntering" (walking leisurely) is personification. The couple drag their chairs down the stone steps and "sprawl / in silence till the words begin to come".

The wife and the husband

The wife "surveys the scene" and comments "on a broken window-pane", suggesting that every husband in the neighbourhood knows how to fix such things — "except of course the man she loves / who happened to be me." This is gentle self-mockery. The poet, "unwilling to dispute / the obvious fact / that she is always right" (irony / understatement), turns towards "the more attractive view that opens up behind my eyes" — his own thoughts — and "shuts her out". "Her voice crawls up and down the lawn."

The son's demand

Their seven-year-old son hears his mother's voice and is reminded of something. He stands firmly, "his small legs well apart, / crescent-moon-like chin uplifted, / eyes hard and cold", and declares: "Mummy, I want my dinner, now."

Parents in "unusual rapport"

Wife and husband in unusual rapport

state one unspoken thought:

Children Must be Disciplined.

For once the parents agree completely — without speaking. The capital letters make the thought sound like a solemn rule or slogan, humorously. "She looks at me. I look away." — each wants the other to act.

The argument

The wife wags a finger: "Wait. / In five minutes I'll serve you dinner." The boy replies: "No… not in five minutes, now. / I am hungry." The father notes, amused, "the boy is like his father. / I love him as I love myself." When the mother repeats "wait for five minutes", the boy argues: "in five minutes / I won't be hungry any more."

The resolution

This argument appeals to me.

Such a logician deserves his dinner straightaway.

My wife's delightful laughter

holds the three of us together.

We rise and go into the house.

The father admires the child's logic; the mother's laughter resolves the tension and unites the family.

The Limerick (from the same section of the book)

The book adds a short note on the limerick: a five-line poem expressing a single, usually funny thought with a punch in the last line; rhyme scheme a a b b a (lines 1, 2 and 5 rhyme; lines 3 and 4 rhyme). It calls the limerick "to poetry what slapstick is to comedy". Examples include the man from Peru who "dreamed he was eating his shoe" and "woke up… / And found that it was perfectly true!"

Themes

Literary Devices and Style

Word Power

Exam Focus

Q. Explain the undertones in 'Wife and husband in unusual rapport / State one unspoken thought'.

Outline: Normally they differ (she is "always right"; he "shuts her out"), but faced with the child they agree instantly and silently that children must be disciplined — gentle irony about parents uniting against a child.

Q. Comment on the capitalisation in 'Children Must be Disciplined'.

Outline: It turns the thought into a grand, rule-like slogan, mocking the parents' seriousness.

Q. What makes the urgency of the child's demand seem logical?

Outline: He is hungry now; if he waits five minutes he "won't be hungry any more" — a child's clear logic that the father admires.

Q. How is the idyllic juxtaposed with the pedestrian?

Outline: The warm April evening and sauntering breezes (idyllic) sit beside complaints about a broken window-pane and demands for dinner (pedestrian), making ordinary life poetic.

Common Mistakes