THE poem presents a single room. A 3x4 room “too narrow to fan life” housing seven people. The space feels cramped and poor. A single window connects it with the world of such force outside.

In the poem, Chairil Anwar depicts the room’s mood of depression and lethargy with a series of images that gather in intensity. The mother who has “sobbed herself to sleep”. The father flopped in exhaustion…the old man gazing at something that is