Amanda Summary Class 10 English

Amanda Summary: The “First Flight” book for English class 10 which is used in CBSE schools has a poem named ‘Amanda’—written by “Robin Klein”. Children who find it difficult to understand the Summary of the poem Amanda of class 10 because of its difficult words and framing of sentences can leave their worries as we are here helping you to understand the verse in detail by providing you with an explanation of the poem Amanda. Here we have given the para-wise Amanda Summary explanation.

Amanda Summary Class 10 English
Poetess Robin Klein

Amanda Summary

The poet “Robin Klein” is trying to highlight the problems that occur in the upbringing of a small child. Amanda is a kid somewhere around 12-13 years old, who goes to school. She is fed up with her mom, as she always tries to control her. This frequent interference with her mother, makes her feel unhappy and irritated. Poet is trying to tell every parent, that child’s freedom and space are very important. She is trying to conclude with the poem that every child needs some space to grow and create her own thoughts.

If parents intervene with their thoughts and try to point them out at every step, even where it is not necessary, it makes a child irritated and furious. Our goal is to provide a summary of the poem Amanda paragraph-wise so that it becomes easy for everyone to understand the true meaning of the poem.

About the Poet

Robin McMaugh Klein is an Australian poet. She was born on 28 February 1936. Robin Klein was born and brought up in Kempsey, New South Wales, Australia, and now resides near Melbourne. The majority of her writings are on children’s themes. She tries to highlight the societal code for girls especially. 

About the poet.
Information about the poet

Amanda Summary PARA-wise explanation

The poem Amanda is about a little girl and her mother who always scolds and reprimands her for all the mistakes she commits. Poet here is trying to show the condition of that little girl, who is trying to escape from her parents, every now and then.  

1st Paragraph: Here the mother is seen scolding Amanda for biting her nails, walking with a hutching back, and slouching while she sits. She constantly tries to correct her posture, while sitting, and walking and again and again tells her to sit straight and not to be lazy. She does not like this, as she feels controlled. 

Amanda goes into the imagination, where she imagines herself as free as a mermaid in the water. She sees herself as a mermaid who is the only resident in that big green ocean and thinks of roaming freely there. She imagines herself moving with the water freely. 

2nd Paragraph: Mother again breaks Amanda’s chain of thoughts, and asks her if she has finished her homework, or cleaned her room. Mother even reminds her to clean her shoes as she has already told her to do so. 

Here Amanda is comparing the two worlds, one in which she is with her mother who pinpoints her and never lets her be free, and another world where she is an orphan and has no one to control her. She is imagining herself roaming in the streets all alone, where no one tells her where to go. She is making patterns on the dust with her naked feet. No one is scolding her there, no one says her to clean her shoes. She imagines all this because she is not liking to be controlled every minute. 

Poet here uses a metaphor, “Silence is golden, freedom is sweet”, she uses this metaphor to explain, that because Amanda is under the eyes of her mother all the time and she keeps on shouting at her and corrects her every minute, so she says, for Amanda silence is very precious as gold, it is invaluable for her.  And freedom which is never tasted by her is very sweet for her. 

3rd Paragraph: The poet then describes that the mother is concerned about Amanda, as she might be at the age where her body getting into a transformation and like every other mother she is also trying to tell her that she should not have chocolates or else she will get a pimple.
With all these do’s and don’ts Amanda gets irritated and in that irritation, she is not even bothered to look towards her mother, because of which her mother scolds her again saying at least she should respect her and look at the person when somebody is talking to her. 

Here Amanda again goes into an image, this time she is Rapunzel, a fairy tale character, who lives freely in a tree house all alone with long golden hair, which she uses to make the visitors climb up her room. Amanda says, like Rapunzel, she will also live in a tree house where no one can enter, and like her, she will also have long hair, but she will not give it to anyone to climb up to her. She wants to be all by herself there.

4th Paragraph: With all these, Amanda is now fed up with the environment she sees every day and feels like a cage from where she wants to be free. She tries to ignore everything but a small kid who gets a scolding doesn’t feel good and starts to sulk or cry. Her mother tells her to stop crying as she is trying to do the best for her by making her aware of her bad habits, but Amanda is making it as if she is nagging and scolding her. The mother warns her daughter about her moody behaviour and tells her to understand for once at least.  

Meaning of difficult words

Word Meaning
Hunching to bend back and shoulder forward into a round shape.
Slouchingto sit or stand or walk in a lazy way, with your head and shoulders hanging down.
Hushedsilently
Barenaked
Languidrelaxed
Driftingmoving slowly
Reprimandsa formal expression of disapproval

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Frequently Asked Questions

What is the theme of the poem Amanda?

The central theme of the poem Amanda is the upbringing of the child. Parents, especially mothers, keep on correcting their children on every action they do.

What is the irony of the poem?

The last stanza of the poem is a little ironic, as the last stanza shows the amount of patience Amanda is keeping. There is a use of metaphor in the poem ” Silence is Golden, Freedom is Sweet”.

What is the symbolism in Amanda’s poem?

Freedom, Peace and Desires are the symbols in the poem, which Amanda daydreams about. She is always looking for these symbols in her life.

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