Box room Flashcards
(29 cards)
“First the welcoming. Smiles all round. A space
for handshakes”
Short sentences highlight the lack of warmth between the two women. Enjambment further emphasises the distance between the two women. Also suggests that it’s not the first time the son has brought a girl round.
“Put me in my place”
This suggests that action of putting her in the box room isn’t the action of the mother leaving the girlfriend in the room but it symbolises the mothers feeling that this is not going to last.
“Was always his”
Word choice - pronouns ‘his/him’ reflect how the mother only cares about her son, suggests possessiveness - she is over-bearing
“He brings a Friend”
Word choice - ‘friend’ suggests the mother does not acknowledge the romantic relationship between the two.
Highlighted through the capitalisation (S.S)
“He’ll make do tonight”
Word choice - suggests that just as he will make do with the pull out, he is making do (settling) for the woman
“For a night or two. Once or twice before”
Word choice - suggests he will not stay with her for long. Also suggests he has had other girlfriends stay round before.
“‘peace to unpack’”
Sentence structure - inverted commas mock the mother or suggest she doesn’t trust her intentions. At this point, she still feels confident in her relationship despite the mother’s snide comments
“glossy” and “synthetic”
Word choice - both words suggest this is how the mother views the speaker - superficial and lacking substance and longevity. She isn’t good enough for her son.
“her pathetic shrine”
Imagery - metaphor compares the box room to a holy place of worship, suggests the speaker finds the mother’s worshipping attitude towards her son silly and unnecessary. Tone of disgust is established
“your lost boyhood”
Word choice - ‘lost’ suggests something that she cannot get back, grieving the loss of her son to the speaker
“she can brush off time with dust from model aeroplanes”
Imagery - metaphor suggests that dust represents tine and that by dusting the room and in keeping it clean the mother is trying to cling to her son’s childhood
“laugh it off in self-defence”
Word choice - “self defence” has connotations of being ready to defend yourself. The speaker is aware of the conflict between herself and the mother; she is ready to battle to win the war
“Peace to unpack - But”
Sentence structure - repetition is used to emphasise the tension between the speaker and the mother. She repeats her words from stanza 1.
‘but’ signifies a change in tone, turning point/volta - before she was defiant, now she’s vulnerable
“contained you”
Word choice - connotations of restricting. Suggests the mother wanted to keep her son at home for as long as possible
“old horizons”
Word choice - connotations of the past, when his hopes and dreams were stifled by his mother. Suggests she is his ‘new horizon’
“Persistent fear elbows me”
Imagery - fear is personified as something that can inflict pain. Suggests she has been caught unaware by her feelings and emotions
“(Narrow but no narrower than the single bed we sometimes share)”
Sentence structure - parenthesis introduces an aside and reveal the speaker’s inner thoughts
Word choice - “single” bed suggests that there is no room for her in his bed. “sometimes” suggests that he does not consider this relationship as permanent.
“(But where do I fit into the picture?)”
Sentence structure - parenthesis emphasises the rhetorical question. the speaker questions her place in her boyfriend’s life.
“Your bookshelves are crowded with previous prizes, a selection of plots grown thin”
Imagery - metaphor, physical books are compared with the boyfriend’s past relationships - relationships which have ended
“Crowded”
Word choice - suggests he has had a lot of previous girlfriends
“Grown thin”
Word choice - suggests they have ended because he became bored with them, like someone becoming bored by reading the same story over and over again.
“precarious”
Word choice - suggests something perilous or at risk; the relationship with the man is not secure.
“Your egg collection shatters me”
Imagery - the image of the egg collection relates, literally, to the childhood hobby of collecting eggs. Metaphorically, eggs are a feminine symbol and suggests he has collected women over the years - this idea ‘shatters’ her, the onomatopoeia emphasises her devastation at this discovery.
“I shiver despite the electric blanket and the deceptive mildness of the night”
Imagery - pathetic fallacy - ‘deceptive mildness of the night’ - although the weather is warm, the speaker feels cold and ‘shivers’, symbolic of how welcome she feels in this house
