The Professor by Nissim Ezekiel is a satirical poem written in the form of a conversation between a professor and his student. A satire is way of criticizing a person, an idea or something where the poet uses humour to point out their faults and weaknesses. Here, the professor makes fun of himself by the way he speaks or thinks.
A professor is someone who should be proper in his subject or the medium he teaches. But the professor in The Professor is caricatured because of his erroneous dialect. A Professor can also be called a monologue because one can find that the professor speaks but listener does not say a word. The poem is composed in Indian English and the poet mocks Indians who finds prestigious to speak in English, even when they are not so good in it, rather than in their mother tongue.
Summary of The Professor by Nissim Ezekiel
(Lines: 1-11) The poem, The Professor begins with a question, ‘Remember me?’. The question is from a retired Geography professor to one of his former student. He then introduces himself as Professor Sheth who had once taught Geography to that student. Then he describes his current position, his family and his health.
He tells him that his wife has passed away few years back and by God’s will, all his children ‘are well settled in life.’ He also mentions that one of his sons is a Bank Manager and another is a Sales Manager. To describe their social and financial condition, the retired professor says they both own cars. Then he mentions about his third son whom he considers as the black sheep of the family.
(Lines: 12-21) The professor then talks about his daughters, Sarala and Tarala. He says that they both are married and leading a happy life. His son-in-laws ‘are very nice boys.’ The professor then proudly tells his student that he has eleven grandchildren. He even asks his student how many issues he has. The student probably says three when the professor says people are going in for family planning these days which is good.
The professor keeps on talking. He talks about the changing times and the importance of change. He talks about how the whole world is changing along with India. He then talks about the change in values. Old values are been replaced by new values.
(Lines: 22-36) The professor now talks a bit about himself. He says that he hardly go out because of his old age. Then he says his ‘health is O.K’ but he does have usual aches and pains. He is not suffering from diabetes, blood pressure or heart disease. He says proudly that he is healthy because of the good habits that he has cultivated from his youth.
He even enquires about his student’s health and is happy when he comes to know that the student is in good health. The professor reveals his age, he says that he is sixty nine and hopes to live for a hundred years. He jokes with his student that the latter was like a stick earlier but now he has gained weight and become a ‘man of weight and consequence.’ Finally, the professor asks him to pay a visit to his home if he ever comes near to his dwelling place.
ABOUT THE POET:
Nissim Ezekiel (14 December 1924- 9 January 2004) was an Indian Jewish poet, playwright, editor, art critic. He was awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award for his Poetry collection, ‘Latter-Day Psalms.’
Keywords – the professor poem (1.0), the professor by nissim ezekiel (1.0), summary of the professor (1.1), the professor summary (1.4), the professor poem summary (1.1), the professor by nissim ezekiel wikipedia (2.1), summary of the poem the professor (1.1), nissim ezekiel the professor (1.0), summary of the poem the professor by nissim ezekiel (1.1), professor poem (1.1)
Some online learning platforms provide certifications, while others are designed to simply grow your skills in your personal and professional life. Including Masterclass and Coursera, here are our recommendations for the best online learning platforms you can sign up for today.
The 7 Best Online Learning Platforms of 2022
- Best Overall: Coursera
- Best for Niche Topics: Udemy
- Best for Creative Fields: Skillshare
- Best for Celebrity Lessons: MasterClass
- Best for STEM: EdX
- Best for Career Building: Udacity
- Best for Data Learning: Pluralsight
omg… this is soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo boring…. exzs here suck
thank u so much it gives me a lot of information
I agree with you:):)XDXDXDXPXPXP
Hmm
Niceeeeee one know
yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa………….true
Thank u a ton…..helped me very much in exams…but only a small grudge that u should extend the summary a little more like adding meaning to some difficult words……but again thank u….:)
Thank u so much
Cool
This poem gives me a damn….But this site is awesome!…:)
It was really helpfull
Great website ! thanks a lot! Hope to see some more of each poem/prose like the inner meaning or the type of questions that could be asked for the board exam. Hope this suggestion is considered ASAP.
It helped me For the ICSE Project……..
thanks it’s help full for my assignment
Niceeeeee one know
helped a lot in preparing my ICSE PROJECT….thnx
next sunday is my exam in tution and it help me a lot
thanx………….
There is exam in EP nd it help me
Thank u☺☺☺☺it helps me a lot..
It’s helpful
This was helpfull but could have been explained a little bit more!!! Thanks a lot anyways…
Thank you for helping me before my exam……
Thanks for helping me before my exam…..
damn informative… dis ssrly helped a lot!!! =)
I’ve my own analisys of the poem the professor The poem has been started with a question “Remember me?” Usually professors are termed as absent minded. With this question the professor wishes to declare that he is not one. Rather he reminds the reader about his existance. The poet wishes to say that the professor is a person whom almost every person would like to forget. But he is the person who tries ham values in the student. Geography falls in the catagory of humanities. Humanities teach human values. By the change the professor means the human values are changing. In the name of value people are forgetting the old. To support his argument the poet brings in the various diseases prevailing today and the health of the professor. In conclusion the poet advises all to go to the professors to learn the human values. This my interpretation of the poem. If othets have any interpretation pl do not hesitate to convey.
Thus has too many grammatical error, just so you know.
helped me a lot in my last minuit preparation for the exams… u saved me today
Thanks for this lovely summary 🙂
It’s really helpful n a nice effort to reach the requirements of the students…but,word meaning or annotations,critical appreciation etc.are needed….
thanks a lot for your summaries they are really great, if you don’t mind can you write summaries for all the other poems and short stories for icse.
This is very good keep it up. Thanks for helping me as well. You’re great.
it helped in my poetry project and i gained 20 marks for it. :-):-):-)
Pleasw tell me the meaning of last line
How is there humour in this story?
really nice notes,exact points,good job man!!!!
in the summary there is a misconception and a wrong info is printed. the student does not give the answer that he has three children, it is assumed by the professor that he has three children, he is asking question to his student if he has three children. u can check it by going through the poem. you just need to give a look at that thing, except that every thing is fine. good summary and helpful
k
Thanks….its helping me one day before the examination!!!
hi!summary is fine,but it should be quite big.try to use some difficult words thank you!
Thank u so much. It gives me lot of knowledge.
very nice analysis its very useful thank you so much
Nice one
helped a lot in my projects
it helped me alot thnx alot
thanks a lot …… helped me in my project
this summary is helfull for answering the questions.
Good one
It really helped me in my assignment ??. ..!!
A Mediocre summary
Awesome explanation . Helped me in my examinations
Thanks a lot ur notes really help in last minute preparations.?? anyhow tq
Thanks a lot it really helped me out at d last minute??
What kind of third class summary ?
We had better read poem than that of this tedious, unfolded, unuseful summary.
really worth. loved this website