A Concrete Example | CBSE Class 8 English Notes
On this page
Who wrote the poem and what is it about?
"A Concrete Example" is a short, three-stanza poem by Reginald Arkell. It appears in the "Wit and Wisdom" unit of the textbook; the book introduction describes the poem itself as one that "highlights irony and satire in everyday situations".
The speaker describes a visit to the garden of a next-door neighbour, Mrs Jones, whose garden is "full of stones" rather than flowers.
The poem is written in a light, conversational tone and builds towards a surprising final line. Each stanza opens with the same line, "My next-door neighbour, Mrs. Jones," which gives the poem a song-like, repetitive quality.
The poet uses this everyday domestic scene, a visit to a neighbour's garden, to make a gentle point about how differently people see the same thing.
The title itself is a pun: "concrete" can mean the hard grey building material, fitting a stony garden, and it can also mean "clear" or "definite", as in a "concrete example" of something.
Both meanings matter by the end of the poem, when the reader finally understands what the "strange" garden, and Mrs Jones's attitude to it, really amount to.
What happens in the poem, stanza by stanza?
The poem tells a small, three-part anecdote: a description of the garden, a description of the plants in it, and a visit that ends in a surprising discovery.
Stanza 1: Mrs Jones's stony garden
The speaker introduces the neighbour, Mrs Jones, who "has got a garden full of stones". Instead of lawns or flower beds, her garden has "a crazy path", "a lily pond" and "a rockery".
It also has "a sundial with a strange device", an unusual object that Mrs Jones herself "thinks rather nice".
From the very first stanza, the poet signals that this is an unusual, stone-dominated garden and that its owner is proud of it.
Stanza 2: the "delicate and small" plants
The second stanza turns to the few plants Mrs Jones does grow. She "puts little plants between the stones", but the speaker describes them as "so delicate and small" that "they don't mean anything at all".
The speaker jokes that he "can't think how she gets them in" unless "she plants them with a pin".
This is a deliberately exaggerated image: the plants are so tiny that an ordinary tool seems too large for the job, which pokes gentle fun at how insignificant the greenery is compared with all the stonework.
Stanza 3: the visit and the twist
In the final stanza, Mrs Jones "once asked me round to see her stones". The two of them "stood and talked about a flower for quite a quarter of an hour", suggesting Mrs Jones is deeply attached to this one plant and eager to show it off.
The speaker, unable to see any flower at all, finally asks, "Where is this lovely thing?" Mrs Jones's reply closes the poem: "You're standing on it." The flower Mrs Jones has been praising for fifteen minutes is so small that the speaker has literally been standing on it without noticing, which gives the whole poem its ironic, humorous punchline.
What poetic devices does the poet use in this poem?
Arkell keeps the language of the poem simple, but he uses several devices to build its humour.
The most noticeable device is the refrain: the line "My next-door neighbour, Mrs. Jones," opens every stanza, almost like a chorus.
This repetition keeps the focus firmly on Mrs Jones and her relationship with the speaker, and it gives the poem a sing-song, nursery-rhyme feel that suits its light, teasing tone.
The poem also uses alliteration, the repetition of similar starting sounds, in phrases such as "sundial" and "strange" close together in the first stanza, and "quite a quarter" in the third stanza. These repeated sounds make certain phrases stand out and add to the poem's playful rhythm.
There is also imagery: the "crazy path", the "lily pond", the "rockery" and the "sundial with a strange device" all build a vivid picture of an eccentric, stone-filled garden, so that readers can almost see Mrs Jones's unusual collection of features before the plants are even mentioned.
Finally, the title is a pun, playing on "concrete" as both a building material and a word meaning "definite" or "specific", as explained under the poem's own title discussion.
What is the rhyme scheme of the poem?
Each stanza of "A Concrete Example" follows the pattern AABBCC: the first two lines rhyme with each other ("Jones"/"stones"), the next two lines rhyme with each other ("pond"/"beyond"), and the final two lines rhyme with each other ("device"/"nice"). This neat, closed rhyme pattern is repeated in every stanza.
This tidy rhyme scheme matches the conversational, almost chatty tone of the poem. Because each pair of lines is a self-contained rhyming unit, the poem reads easily aloud, like someone telling a short, amusing story about a neighbour.
The regular rhyme also sets up the reader's expectations, so that the final couplet of the last stanza, with its sudden twist, lands with more surprise.
The steady, predictable rhyme pattern is part of what makes the final line funny: the form of the poem stays exactly as expected right up to the joke, "You're standing on it," which arrives in the same neat rhyming couplet as everything before it, even though its content is completely unexpected.
Why is the title "A Concrete Example" a pun?
A pun is a figure of speech that uses words with more than one meaning, or words that sound alike but mean different things, to create a humorous effect. The title of this poem works on exactly this kind of double meaning.
On a literal level, "concrete" suggests the hard, grey material used to build paths, patios and rockeries, which fits Mrs Jones's stone-filled garden perfectly. The "crazy path", the rockery and the sundial are all the sort of solid, built features one might associate with concrete.
On a symbolic level, a "concrete example" is an expression meaning a clear, definite instance of something, as opposed to a vague idea.
The poem itself is offered as a "concrete example" of Mrs Jones's eccentric, stone-obsessed gardening habits and of how oddly she talks about her garden, treating a tiny, almost invisible flower as the highlight of her "lovely thing".
By choosing a title that works both ways, the poet links the physical subject of the poem, stone and concrete, with the point he is making about Mrs Jones's particular, unusual way of gardening and seeing beauty.
How does the poem use irony?
Irony is a literary device that highlights the gap between what is expected and what actually happens, often creating a surprising or humorous effect. "A Concrete Example" builds its entire structure around one central situational irony.
Throughout the poem, Mrs Jones is shown as proud and enthusiastic about her garden: she thinks the "strange device" sundial is "rather nice", and she talks about "a flower" with the speaker for "quite a quarter of an hour", clearly treating it as something precious and worth admiring.
The reader naturally expects this flower to be visible, impressive, perhaps even the one real spot of colour in a garden otherwise "full of stones".
Instead, when the speaker asks, "Where is this lovely thing?", Mrs Jones's reply, "You're standing on it," reveals that the flower is so small the speaker has been standing on it the whole time without noticing it existed at all.
This mismatch between Mrs Jones's excitement and the ordinary, almost invisible reality of what she is excited about is what creates the poem's irony. It is this same gap that the poem's title plays on by calling the whole anecdote "a concrete example" of her attitude to gardening.
What do we learn about Mrs Jones's character?
Mrs Jones is drawn through only a few details, but the poem builds a clear picture of her character. She is the speaker's "next-door neighbour", and her garden is dominated by stone features rather than conventional flower beds, which already marks her as someone with unconventional taste.
She takes evident pride in her garden: the "strange device" of the sundial is something she "thinks rather nice", and she is keen enough about it to invite the speaker "round to see her stones".
She is also deeply attentive to her plants, even the tiniest ones, spending a quarter of an hour discussing a single, barely visible flower with obvious enthusiasm.
Mrs Jones's final line, "You're standing on it," shows her calm, matter-of-fact way of correcting the speaker, delivered without embarrassment.
She does not seem troubled that her treasured flower is this small or this easy to miss; she is simply happy that it exists at all.
This suggests someone who finds genuine delight in small, overlooked things, even if that delight puzzles or amuses her more conventional neighbour.
What themes does the poem explore?
Different people see beauty differently
The poem's central theme is that taste and perception of beauty vary from person to person.
Mrs Jones is thrilled by a sundial, a stony rockery and a flower so small it is almost invisible, while the speaker can barely see what she finds so wonderful.
The poem does not say either view is wrong; it simply shows that the same garden can mean very different things to different people.
Gentle satire of obsession
The poem gently mocks Mrs Jones's single-minded devotion to her stones and her tiny plants, exaggerating details such as planting flowers "with a pin" to poke affectionate fun at how far she takes her hobby. This is not harsh criticism; the humour stays light and good-natured throughout.
Irony and surprise in everyday life
By building towards the unexpected reply "You're standing on it," the poem shows how ordinary conversations can contain irony and humour. An everyday visit to a neighbour's garden becomes memorable because the ending overturns what the reader expects to find.
Appreciating small and overlooked things
Mrs Jones's devotion to a flower too small to notice suggests a theme of valuing small, easily overlooked things. The poem invites readers to consider that something worth fifteen minutes of conversation to one person might be invisible to another.
What are the key quotations from the poem?
The six short quotations below trace the poem's progress, from the first picture of Mrs Jones's stony garden to the final, surprising reply that gives the poem its humour. Each is quoted exactly as printed, together with its speaker and context, so that the lines can be used directly in written answers.
"My next-door neighbour, Mrs. Jones, / has got a garden full of stones" — the speaker, opening the poem.
This opening quotation, repeated with variation at the start of every stanza, introduces both the neighbour herself and the poem's main image: a garden made of stone rather than grass or flowers.
"A sundial with a strange device, / which Mrs. Jones thinks rather nice." — the speaker, on the garden's features.
This line shows Mrs Jones's evident pride in an object the speaker finds merely "strange", setting up the gap in perception that runs through the whole poem.
"They are so delicate and small, / they don't mean anything at all." — the speaker, on Mrs Jones's tiny plants.
Here the speaker openly dismisses the plants as insignificant, which makes Mrs Jones's own devotion to them, revealed in the final stanza, all the more striking.
"unless she plants them with a pin." — the speaker, exaggerating the plants' size.
This comic exaggeration prepares the reader for the poem's eventual twist, that one of these tiny plants will turn out to be almost impossible to see at all.
"Where is this lovely thing?" I cried. — the speaker, asking about the flower.
The speaker's confused question, after a quarter of an hour of conversation, shows he genuinely cannot locate the flower Mrs Jones has been praising.
"You're standing on it," she replied. — Mrs Jones, delivering the poem's final, ironic line.
This calm, matter-of-fact reply is the poem's punchline, revealing in six words the gap between Mrs Jones's quiet pride and the speaker's complete failure to notice what she treasures.
What are the answers to the textbook questions?
Cloze summary (using the poem's own words): Mrs Jones's garden is full of stones; it includes a peculiar crazy path, a pond, and a rockery, along with an unusual sundial she finds charming; she plants tiny, delicate plants between the stones which the speaker thinks must be planted with a pin; they later discuss a flower Mrs Jones treasures; when asked where the lovely flower is, Mrs Jones says the speaker has been standing on it all along.
Tone and rhyme (MCQs): The tone of the poem is best described as humorous, amusing and light-hearted (option D: ii, iv, v); it is gentle fun, not mournful.
The speaker in the poem is the poet, narrating in the first person as "I". The rhyme scheme of each stanza is AABBCC (option i).
Fill in the blanks: The poet repeats "stones" in every stanza to emphasise Mrs Jones's obsession with a stony garden. The imagery of the crazy path, rockery and sundial helps readers visualise the garden's peculiar nature.
Alliteration: examples include "sundial" and "strange" together in the first stanza, and "quite a quarter" in the third stanza, where neighbouring words share starting sounds.
Refrain: the repeated line "My next-door neighbour, Mrs. Jones," opens every stanza and acts as the poem's refrain.
Situational irony: the line "You're standing on it," she replied, is the clearest example, since it overturns the speaker's expectation of seeing an impressive flower.
Title's meaning: "concrete" refers both to the actual stone and concrete-like features in Mrs Jones's garden, and symbolically to a "concrete example" of her unusual, stone-focused gardening habits.
Extract questions (stanza 1): (i) Mrs Jones's garden "full of stones" suggests she has unconventional taste, preferring stone features to flowers. (ii) True, the garden does reveal more about Mrs Jones's personality.
(iii) A "crazy path" is an irregular, oddly shaped path, not laid out in a neat or conventional pattern. (iv) The sundial's "strange device" suggests option A, that Mrs Jones has a fascination with unusual items.
Open questions: (1) Mrs Jones feels proud and pleased with her garden, shown by her thinking the sundial "rather nice" and inviting the speaker to see her stones.
(2) The speaker calls the plants tiny enough to be "planted with a pin" to humorously stress how insignificant and small they are compared with the stonework.
(3) Mrs Jones comes across as devoted, proud and attentive to detail, treasuring even the smallest flower, while remaining unbothered by the speaker's surprise.
(4) The poem presents her warmly rather than unkindly, since her reply is calm and good-humoured rather than offended.
(5) The poem shows that people notice and value very different things in the same surroundings, as the "lovely thing" that matters so much to Mrs Jones is invisible to her neighbour.
Word replacements (Let us learn): "strange" can be replaced by "unusual" or "peculiar"; "nice" by "pleasant" or "agreeable"; "delicate" by "fragile" or "dainty"; "cried" by "exclaimed".
What word meanings help in reading this poem?
Several words in the poem need careful reading because they are used in slightly old-fashioned or specific ways.
A crazy path is a garden path made of irregularly shaped paving stones fitted together, not a path that is literally "insane"; the word "crazy" here describes the uneven pattern of the stones.
A rockery is a part of a garden built from arranged rocks and stones, often with small plants growing between them, which fits the overall stony theme of Mrs Jones's garden.
A sundial is an instrument that tells the time using the position of a shadow cast by the sun, and here it is also called a "strange device", meaning an unusual mechanical or decorative object.
The word delicate describes the plants as fragile and easily damaged, reinforcing how small and vulnerable they seem among the stones.
When the speaker "cried" a question, this means he exclaimed it, not that he was in tears; it is simply a way of saying he spoke suddenly and with feeling.
Understanding these specific meanings matters because the poem relies on precise, concrete details, stones, a rockery, a sundial, a pin, a quarter of an hour, to build its picture of Mrs Jones's garden and her attitude to it, before the final twist changes how we see all of them.
Glossary
- Crazy path — a garden path made of irregularly shaped paving stones fitted together.
- Rockery — a part of a garden built with arranged rocks and stones, often planted with small plants.
- Sundial — an instrument that shows the time using the shadow cast by the sun.
- Device — here, an unusual mechanical or decorative object or instrument.
- Delicate — fragile, easily damaged, used here for the tiny plants between the stones.
- Lily pond — a small pond planted with lilies, used as a garden feature.
- Refrain — a line or phrase repeated at the start or end of each stanza of a poem.
- Pun — a figure of speech using a word's double meaning, or similar-sounding words, for humour.
- Irony — a device highlighting the gap between what is expected and what actually happens.
- Situational irony — irony arising from the outcome of a situation being the opposite of what is expected.
- Alliteration — the repetition of the same starting sound in nearby words.
- Rhyme scheme — the pattern in which lines of a poem rhyme with one another.
- Concrete — here, both the building material used for stony garden features and, figuratively, "clear" or "definite".
- Cried — exclaimed; spoke suddenly with feeling, not an act of weeping.
- Next-door neighbour — the person who lives in the house immediately beside one's own.
Common errors and misconceptions
- Misconception: The speaker and Mrs Jones are the same person. Correct: The speaker is the poet-narrator describing his neighbour, Mrs Jones, who is a separate character.
- Misconception: "Crazy path" means a mad or dangerous path. Correct: It simply describes a path of irregularly shaped paving stones.
- Misconception: The poem mocks Mrs Jones harshly. Correct: The humour is gentle and affectionate, not unkind, as the ending is light-hearted rather than cruel.
- Misconception: The flower mentioned is clearly visible in the garden. Correct: It is so small the speaker has been standing on it without noticing, which is the poem's central irony.
- Misconception: The rhyme scheme changes between stanzas. Correct: Every stanza follows the same AABBCC pattern.
- Misconception: "Concrete" in the title refers only to the material. Correct: It is a pun, also meaning a "clear, definite example" of Mrs Jones's gardening habits.
- Misconception: A pun and irony mean the same thing. Correct: A pun plays on double word meanings, while irony is a gap between expectation and outcome; the poem uses both separately.
Exam-style questions with model answers
Q1. Who is Mrs Jones in the poem, and where does she live in relation to the speaker? [2 marks]
- Mrs Jones is the speaker's next-door neighbour.
- She owns a garden that is full of stones rather than conventional flower beds.
Q2. What is the rhyme scheme used in each stanza of the poem, with one example from the text? [2 marks]
- Each stanza follows the rhyme scheme AABBCC.
- For example, "Jones" rhymes with "stones" in the first two lines.
Q3. Using the poem, describe the features found in Mrs Jones's garden. [4 marks]
- The garden is described as "full of stones", showing it is dominated by rock features rather than grass or flower beds.
- It has "a crazy path", an irregularly shaped paved walkway made of fitted paving stones rather than a smooth, even path.
- It also has "a lily pond" for water plants and "a rockery", a raised bed of arranged rocks planted with small plants.
- Finally, it has "a sundial with a strange device", an unusual timekeeping instrument that Mrs Jones herself finds "rather nice".
Q4. Explain how the title "A Concrete Example" is a pun on the word "concrete". [4 marks]
- "Concrete" can mean the hard, grey building material used for paths and stonework.
- This literal meaning fits Mrs Jones's stone-filled garden, with its crazy path and rockery.
- "Concrete" can also mean "clear" or "definite", as in a "concrete example" of something.
- In this symbolic sense, the poem is offered as a clear, specific instance of Mrs Jones's eccentric gardening habits.
Q5. Identify the refrain in the poem and explain what effect it creates. [3 marks]
- The refrain is the opening line of each stanza, "My next-door neighbour, Mrs. Jones,", which is repeated at the start of every stanza of the poem.
- Repeating this line at the start of every stanza keeps the reader's attention fixed on Mrs Jones and her garden throughout.
- It also gives the poem a song-like, rhythmic quality, similar to a chorus, which suits its light, teasing and conversational tone.
Q6. Describe, in your own words, how the poem builds towards its final, ironic line. [6 marks]
- The poem opens by describing Mrs Jones's stony garden, with its crazy path, pond, rockery and sundial, all of which she finds pleasing.
- It then describes the few plants she grows as "delicate and small", so tiny the speaker jokes they must be "planted with a pin".
- In the final stanza, Mrs Jones invites the speaker to see her stones, and they spend "a quarter of an hour" discussing a particular flower.
- The speaker, unable to see this flower anywhere, asks, "Where is this lovely thing?"
- Mrs Jones calmly replies, "You're standing on it," revealing the flower is too small to have been noticed.
- This builds dramatic surprise step by step, from a strange garden, to tiny plants, to a flower so small it is invisible, creating the poem's central situational irony.
Q7. What does the poem suggest about how different people perceive beauty? Support your answer with evidence. [5 marks]
- The poem shows that Mrs Jones and the speaker see the very same garden in two completely different ways.
- Mrs Jones is pleased with her "strange device" sundial and treasures a flower so small it goes unnoticed.
- The speaker, by contrast, finds the plants meaningless, saying they "don't mean anything at all".
- He cannot even see the flower that Mrs Jones has just spent a quarter of an hour discussing with him.
- The poem therefore suggests that beauty and value depend on personal perspective, and are not something on which everyone necessarily agrees.
Key takeaways
- "A Concrete Example" by Reginald Arkell describes the speaker's visit to his neighbour Mrs Jones's stony garden.
- Mrs Jones's garden has a crazy path, a lily pond, a rockery and a sundial with a "strange device".
- Her plants are described as so "delicate and small" they could be "planted with a pin".
- The poem ends with the ironic reply, "You're standing on it," about a flower too small to notice.
- Each stanza follows the rhyme scheme AABBCC and opens with the refrain "My next-door neighbour, Mrs. Jones,".
- The title is a pun, meaning both the building material and a "clear, definite" example.
- The poem's central device is situational irony, the gap between Mrs Jones's pride and the flower's invisibility.
- Its main theme is that people perceive beauty and value differently in the same surroundings.
Test yourself
What relationship does the speaker have with Mrs Jones?
Mrs Jones is the speaker's next-door neighbour, and the poem describes a visit the speaker makes to see her stony garden.
What unusual object does Mrs Jones keep in her garden, and what does she think of it?
She keeps a sundial described as "a strange device", which she "thinks rather nice" despite its unusual appearance.
How does the speaker exaggerate the size of Mrs Jones's plants?
He jokes that the plants are so "delicate and small" that he cannot think how she gets them in "unless she plants them with a pin".
What is the rhyme scheme of each stanza?
Each stanza follows the rhyme scheme AABBCC, with three rhyming pairs of lines.
What is the poem's final line, and why is it ironic?
Mrs Jones replies, "You're standing on it," revealing the treasured flower is so small the speaker never noticed it beneath his feet.
Why is the title "A Concrete Example" called a pun?
"Concrete" means both the hard material fitting Mrs Jones's stony garden and, figuratively, a clear, definite example of her gardening habits.
What line is repeated as the poem's refrain?
"My next-door neighbour, Mrs. Jones," opens every stanza and serves as the poem's refrain.