Revelation by Liz Lochhead

            
             The poem "Revelation" by Liz Lochhead is a poem that conveys an unpleasant, hidden truth in life.
             This poem describes a young child's first encounter with nature, their imaginations and suggests the passing of youth. Liz Lochhead describes a young girl's first encounter of "Bob" the bull. To the child the bull represents all that she had ever feared existed. "I had always half- known that he existed- this Anti- Christ." The imagery that is used to describe the bull makes him appear to be a mad, evil "beast" because that is how he appears to the young girl. His "black," "darkness," and "rage" is contrasted with the fragile, white, "well rounded" eggs. The "placidity" of the milk is the opposite force to the "anarchy" that the bull represents. The girl believes that the bull is a threat to the milk and eggs physically, but Lochhead suggests that they are also a threat metaphorically. .
             Black has always traditionally been used to represent evil and death and the references to the "Anti-Christ" and the double meaning to "Black Mass" suggesting Witchcraft reinforces this image. Lochhead is perhaps suggesting that the white eggs and milk represent the fragility and purity of childhood that are threatened by the evil forces in the world that the bull represents. .
             "They called him Bob - as though perhaps you could reduce a monster with the charm of a friendly name.".
             I think that this could represent parents or even adults in general when she says "They" and I think that she could be commenting on the way in which people try to shelter children from the upsetting or frightening parts of life. The eggs have the potential to be infant chickens, so it gives us a very maternal image of the girl protecting the eggs in the same way that "They" are trying to protect her from the upsetting parts of life, which the bull represents. .
             The "Revelation" in a sense is that the girl has uncovered a side of life that she previously only suspected existed.