(1) Point of View; (2) Situation and Setting; (3) Language/Diction; and (4) Personal Response

The point of view is from a third persons perspective. He is adopting a point of view where he feels sad for the children. He is trying to show the contrast between the way children are living there and the right way children should live. The situation is that the children lives are torn by poverty and war, and the world is darkness to the children. The language involves some rhyming, metaphors and require a level of understanding and interpretation. I feel that this is a good poem cause it is very meaningful. The massage it is trying to convey is very important. Children in the Darkness

There are children in the darkness Who have not seen the light There are children in the darkness Who someone will teach to fight Chalk and blackboards will not be To this door there is no key From this life they can not flee And these children are not free Could we simply light a candle Could we give them half a chance Could we teach them how to read Could we teach them how to dance Or will a war consume them Their body and their soul Will their life and blood be poured Down some endless thirsty hole Back into the darkness From which there is no flight Back into the darkness Into which there shines no light Henry M Bechtold

Background of poem

Children in the darkness
Probably, Henry Mc Bechtold was a fighter in the Vietnam war and he felt the children there are very pitiful, because their lives are torn apart by war and corruption. When he was fighting in Vietnam, he felt that the children, instead of fighting the war, should be sitting in the classroom and receiving proper education. He feels angered because he thinks that children should not live such a life of no meaning, therefore, writing this poem to vent his anger and frustration. The title children in the darkness already what he is going to write about.

References
http://keyserzone.blogspot.com/2010/05/poetry-analysis-children-in-darkness.html