Revelation: Overview

“Revelation: Overview”

Setting

• The poem “Revelation” by Liz Lochhead is set on a Scottish farm, where the speaker encounters a bull during her childhood.

Characters

• The poet acts as the narrator, recounting her youthful experience.
• The bull is the main character in the poem, serving as a symbol for the protagonist’s initiation into the adult world.

Structure

• “Revelation” is a single-stanza poem comprising of nineteen lines with no rhyme scheme.

Narrative Voice

• An adult narrator is used in the poem, reflecting on a childhood encounter.

Themes and Ideas

• The primary theme of “Revelation” is the loss of innocence.
• It also explores the transitions people undergo in life when moving from childhood to adulthood.
• The concept of identity and how it develops as we engage with the world around us is addressed in this work.

Key Quote

• “I stared at it, my heart/ thumping under my ‘plack princess-line’.”
• This quote reflects the speaker’s anxiety and fear, mirroring her struggle to understand the world beyond her childhood innocence.

The insights above bring to focus the speakers’ transformation from a state of ignorance to a sudden understanding. Lochhead effectively captures this pivotal moment in the speaker’s life in “Revelation”.