THE PEOPLE UPSTAIRS




The people upstairs all practise ballet
Their living room is a bowling alley
Their bedroom is full of conducted tours.
Their radio is louder than yours,
They celebrate week-ends all the week.
When they take a shower, your ceilings leak.
They try to get their parties to mix
By supplying their guests with Pogo sticks,
And when their fun at last abates,
They go to the bathroom on roller skates.
I might love the people upstairs more
If only they lived on another floor.



BIODATA

·         One of the most widely appreciated and imitated writers of light verse.

·         Frederic Ogden Nash

·         He was born in Rye, New York, on August 19, 1902.

·         Parents: Edmund Strudwick and Mattie Nash.

·         Nash attended Harvard College, but dropped out after only one year.

·         His poems had an intensely anti-establishment quality that resounded with many Americans, particularly during the Depression.

·         Nash focused on writing poems for children, including the collection Girls Are Silly (Franklin Watts, 1962).

 

WHAT DOES HUMOR GOT TO DO WITH IT

Ogden Nash captures the frustration of sharing a house or apartment with people who are loud. Having walls that are connected means hearing everything that goes on next door or on the floor above. The writer prefers if the neighbors lived in another floor, since he could even love them more. This humorous poem captures some of the things neighbors think they hear from each other.

 

LITERARY DEVICES

●     Assonance

i) Line 5 : "The celebrate week-ends all the week."

 

●     Alliteration

i) Line 7: "They try to get their parties to mix"

ii) Line 8: "By supplying their guests with Pogo sticks,"

 

●     Repetition: "They/Their" (Represents the people upstairs)

 

 

 

MEANING OF THE POEM

•           The poem upstairs is a humorous poem on how it is living with neighbors in the same apartment and probably sharing the same walls.

•           He describes how noisy it is since their radio is always louder than yours, thus in a way invading your space with their entertainment.

•           How they enter the bathroom on roller skates, to describe how their movement is noisy too.

•           How your ceilings leak when they take showers, meaning water flows from their place to your place.

•           How they tend to make their parties mix by supplying their guest with pogo sticks, not knowing if they're used for playing inside the house or fighting, but all in all the idea of supplying guests in the house with pogo sticks is absurd.

•           Their living room is a bowling alley to show how noisy and busy the place is and their bedroom full of conducted tours.

•           The writer prefers if the neighbors lived in another floor, since he could even love them more.

 

MESSAGE

People who’ve shared walls with neighbors will quickly relate to this poem. Those who’ve never had neighbors that close should be thankful because they don’t have to deal with the frustration.

 

EFFECT OR VALUE

Everyone should be considerate by not making things that make their neighbors uncomfortable. This is to develop healthy relationships with the people around us.

https://quizlet.com/in/302351051/the-people-upstairs-flash-cards/








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