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Television

The poem criticizes the overuse of television by children and its negative effects. It describes children as "gaping at the screen" and "hypnotized" by television, which kills their imagination and makes them dull. However, the poem notes that some educational television can expand children's knowledge. It encourages replacing television with reading books, which benefits children more by developing their imagination, mind, and knowledge. In conclusion, the poem compares the effects of reading versus excessive television and argues children's time would be better spent gaining knowledge instead of only watching television programs.

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Sree Jothi
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484 views3 pages

Television

The poem criticizes the overuse of television by children and its negative effects. It describes children as "gaping at the screen" and "hypnotized" by television, which kills their imagination and makes them dull. However, the poem notes that some educational television can expand children's knowledge. It encourages replacing television with reading books, which benefits children more by developing their imagination, mind, and knowledge. In conclusion, the poem compares the effects of reading versus excessive television and argues children's time would be better spent gaining knowledge instead of only watching television programs.

Uploaded by

Sree Jothi
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Poem: Television by Roald Dahl

The poem is about how the poet sees the television as a bad thing
especially towards children. He tells us that people are addicted to
watching television without doing anything else. The poet uses words
like “gaping at the screen”, “stare and stare “and “hypnotised” to show
that children are completely glued to television. This shows how much
television has influence the children to forget the world but continue
watch the television. I could connect myself with the poem since I myself
am always addicted to my favourite TV shows and spend so much time
watching those entertainment programmes.

Then, the bad effects of being addicted to television is shown in


the poem. From the poem, we can learn that television kills imagination,
clutters the mind and makes a child so dull and blind. I believe the bad
effects are true since most of the entertainment programmes do not
provide room for children to form new ideas or expand their critical
thinking skills. The child forgets to think on his own. On the other hand, I
feel that television does not completely kill imagination or clutter our
mind since there are channels that airs solely educational and
informational programmes. Through this, we can go global and learn
many new things like inventions, human civilizations and other historical
facts.

The poem also describes about how much the children are wasting
their time on something non beneficial which they can use to read.
Before they had television, children used to spend their time reading
quality books which will actually develop their imagination and creativity,
sharpen their mind, and expand their horizon of knowledge. Their leisure
time is spent wisely and not wasted. With the presence on television, the
habit of reading is dying. I feel so sad that my once love for reading
books has also died with my newly found interest on televisions. As a
young child, I used to read many fables and tales which were so
interesting and helped me to develop my language as well.

The poet advises to replace the television with bookshelves filled with
books which are in reality more beneficial of the young children.

“Ignoring all the dirty looks,


The screams and yells, the bites and kicks,
And children hitting you with sticks”
The poet tells that though the children might act rebellious at first, slowly
in a week or two of developing the reading habit, they will grow keen on
books. Then, they will also see television as something disgusting or
unclean as they have discover the real joy of reading books. Reading
this poem, I am determined to rekindle my love for reading as I have
realised the importance of reading.

In conclusion, the poem shows a comparison on what happens to


children when they read books and when they watch televisions
extensively. It also makes us realise how we should spend our valuable
time to gain more knowledge instead of watching television programmes.
Yet, I believe in these modern era, television can still be useful to
children as there are educational programmes on televisions. We have
to be careful and selective on what we watch and how much we watch.
Too much of anything can bring disaster.

By,

Sree Jothi
Nur Najwa
Dermasiah
Fetty Christlla

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