' Box Room ' - Liz Lochhead.

The first 200 words of this essay...

' Box Room ' - Liz Lochhead

Liz Lochhead's poem ' Box Room ' clearly presents her contradictory thoughts and feelings about an experience. A first visit to a boyfriend's hostile mother is first presented with great confidence but later becomes an experience of unease and despair.

The first few lines of the poem show that the mother is very hostile :

First the welcoming. Smiles all round. A space

For handshakes.

These are non- sentences, like stage directions, which give the impression that the mother is putting on a performance and it was insincere. The girl is very confident of her relationship with her boyfriend. Although the mother tries to make her feel she is only temporary :

He'll make do tonight

In the lounge on the put -u -up. All right

For a night or two.

This phrase shows that the mother thinks the girl will only be staying for a night or two and then she will have left. The mother also tells the girl she is not the first girl he has brought home:

Once or twice before