Analysis on "The Son is in Secondary School" by Affian Sa’at

The Son is in Secondary School by Affian Sa’at

My badge has a Latin motto
Hope for the future
The future is hope
Or something

At times black crows try to interrupt
When we sing the National Anthem

It is difficult to maintain
The whiteness of my shoes
Especially on Wednesdays

I must admit there is something quite special
About the bare thighs of hardworking scouts

The Malay chauffeurs
Who wait for my schoolmates
Sit on the car park kerb
Telling jokes to one another

Seven to the power of five is unreasonable

On Chinese New Year
Mrs Lee dressed up
In a sarong kebaya
And sang Bengawan Solo

The capital of Singapore is Singapore

My best friend did a heroic thing once
Shaded all A’s
For his Chinese Language
Multiple-choice paper

In our annual yearbook
There is a photograph of me

Pushing a wheelchair and smiling
They caught me
At the exact moment

When my eyes were actually closed

Q1. Write an analysis of the poem.

My badge has a Latin motto
Hope for the future
The future is hope
Or something

From this, I can see that the motto means noting to him. Because of the "Or something", it feels like it is not important to him.

At times black crows try to interrupt
When we sing the National Anthem

From this, I can see that when the poet is singing the National Anthem, he is always searching for crows and he thinks that the crow did it on purpose as "black crows try to interrupt".

It is difficult to maintain
The whiteness of my shoes
Especially on Wednesdays

From this, the shoes of the poet was hard to be clean. This shows that the poet was a active boy. And his shoes were hard to be clean especially on Wednesday. This shows that maybe P.E. is on that day that it made the shoes dirty and hard to be clean.

I must admit there is something quite special
About the bare thighs of hardworking scouts

From "about the bare thighs of hardworking scouts", it clearly shows that the poem is about Singapore earlier days, the days where scouts wore short pants that show their thighs. Unlike now, scouts wear pants at a certain length.

The Malay chauffeurs
Who wait for my schoolmates
Sit on the car park kerb
Telling jokes to one another

This is a quatrain. From this, I can see that the poet came from a poor family, but the poet's classmate are from a wealthy background.

Seven to the power of five is unreasonable

From this, I can conclude that they were not allowed to use calculator and seven to the power of five was very hard to be calculated.

On Chinese New Year
Mrs Lee dressed up
In a sarong kebaya
And sang Bengawan Solo

From this, I can see that Mrs Lee is most likely a Straits Born Chinese.

The capital of Singapore is Singapore

My best friend did a heroic thing once
Shaded all A’s
For his Chinese Language
Multiple-choice paper

From this, I can see that the poet's friends were daring and extremely mischievous.

In our annual yearbook
There is a photograph of me

Pushing a wheelchair and smiling
They caught me
At the exact moment

When my eyes were actually closed

This is the last part of the poem which mainly shows how the son was unluckly.