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What Has Happened To Lulu by Charles Causley
What Has Happened To Lulu by Charles Causley
What has happened to Lulu, mother? I woke to voices late last night,
What has happened to Lu? I heard an engine roar.
There’s nothing in her bed but an old Why do you tell me the things I heard
rag-doll
Were a dream and nothing more?
And by its side a shoe.
A) SYNOPSIS
The poem is a story of a mother grieving because her elder daughter, Lulu has run
away. The child narrator questions her mother about the incident in a series of rhetorical
questions. The mother is in distraught and ends up tells her child a series of lies.
The poem is a ballad which is written in 4 line stanzas where the second and fourth
lines rhymes. This regular and simple form seems appropriate for the voice of the narrator;
which is a young child. The poem is written in a first person dramatic monologue.
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H) LITERARY DEVICES