I think this poem is about a girl called lulu

who is the older sister if the writer who has

run away. The poem is sad and it uses
various ways of showing how the writer is
feeling, by using rhetorical questions quite a
lot in the poem 'what has happened to lulu
mother'. This rhetorical question shows you
that he must be really missing his sister or
he must be getting worried if he had used it
a lot. I chose to do this poem because I
thought it would be quite easy to explain
and I also thought it was an excellent poem.
In the first verse of the poem, the poet
starts with a rhetorical question which is
'what has happened to lulu mother?' I think
this is an effective way of starting the poem
because you know that the poem s going to

be about a girl called lulu. I thought this was

quite unusual because in most poems that I
have read they are either asking
themselves the poem or the reader the
question but, in this poem he is asking his
mother the question. The writer follows this
question with another question, 'what has
happened to lulu?' I think this creates a
sense of affection because, by repeating
the question it tells you that the writer is
missing his sister and cares for her and he
also sounds desperate so he must be really
missing his sister.
In the next verse you can tell that the girl
lulu has runaway and that is why the poet is
asking about her. I know this because, it
uses rhetorical questions and alliteration
like 'why is her window wide open mother?'

and, 'the curtains flapping free, 'and only a

dusty shelf where her money box used to
be?' her window being wide open could
mean that when she ran away she went out
from her window instead of the front door. I
thought the writer saying only a circle on a
dusty shelf, where her money box used to
be was the most striking sentence it says
that when she ran away she must have
taken money with her meaning that she
might not be coming back home.
The following verse also starts with a
rhetorical question and ends with a
rhetorical question, 'why do you turn your
head mother, and why do teardrops fall?
And why do you crumble that note on the
fire mother and say it is nothing at all? The
sentence 'why do you crumble that note on

the fire and say it is nothing at all,' is

another idea that she has runaway
because, it could be a note that she has
wrote saying why she has runaway what
had caused her to runaway. But lulu could
have been kidnapped because it could have
been a ransom letter saying that we have
lulu give us money and we will give her
back. I think the mother might be crumbling
it because she hasn't got what their asking
for or she cant afford it, or she is crumbling
it out of anger or sadness.
In the proceeding verse It uses a lot
personal pronouns and also at the end of
the verse there is a rhetorical question, this
verse is another thought that she has been
kidnapped because, it say 'I woke to voices
late last night and I heard and engine roar'.

These voices could have been the voices of

the kidnappers talking or commanding her
to go to their car and I think they had a car
because he heard an engine roar and that
could be the car starting. Also I think the
mother doesn't want to believe that anything
has happened to lulu even though she
knows that something has because, she
has told the writer it was only a dream, 'why
do tell me the things I heard where a dream
and nothing more'. I also think that she
doesn't want her son who is writing the
poem to worry about lulu so she is lining to
him that it was only a dream. However she
could have runaway because, the engine
roaring could have been a taxi that she had
called late in the night and the voices could
have been hers and the taxi man talking.

After this verse it shows how the mother is

feeling and that lulu being missing is having
an effect on her. It says in the poem 'I heard
someone cry mother, in anger or in pain,
but now I ask you why mother you say it
was a gust of rain.' I think this shows that
mother is upset and I think it was her who
was crying because she is still making up
lies by saying it was a gust of rain, so
maybe the writer doesn't become worried or
wonder why his mother is crying. Also the
line I heard someone cry mother in anger or
in pain is an affective line because, it tells
you that lulu could have been kidnapped
because why else would the mother cry in
anger unless someone hasn't taken her
daughter and she is angry with that person.

What Has Happened to Lulu? is a poem

told in a childs voice about his older sister
running away.
A child is asking his mother what has
happened to his sister, Lulu. There is
nothing in her room, and her money-box
has gone, with only an open window and
an old rag-doll left behind. His mother is
crying and burning a note. He thinks he
heard voices and a car in the middle of the
night, but his mother tells him he was only
dreaming.

What Has Happened to Lulu? deals

with themes of grief and love. The
mother is grieving over her lost child.
The fact that the child has run away
does not make the grief less
significant. The confusion of the
narrator about his or her parents
reaction also tells us something about
the nature of grief.
The poem also considers how we deal
with children, in dismissing what they
have heard or seen. The child narrator
has some valid knowledge of what has
happened, but his mother tells him he
dreamed it. The poem raises the
question of how the child can react,
when he has been told nothing is the
matter, when clearly it is. Ironically

the mother does not know what to do,

as the final stanza makes clear.

This is the option that the daughter, Lulu, appears to

have taken in Charles Causleys poem What Has
Happened to Lulu? The narrator, the younger child,
wakes up and discovers his sister gone, with

"an old rag-doll"

only
left in her bed, to
represent the way she has left childhood behind. It is
implied in the poem, though never stated straight out,
that Lulu has left home to run away with someone: the
roar of the engine that the narrator heard in the night
suggests being taken away in a car. The upset of the
mother, who wont even reply to the child narrators
repeated question that is the title of the poem,
suggests that behind the desire for control by parents
is a love that is trying to keep them safe. Certainly in
Robert Gravess A Frosty Night, the mother of the girl
who has sneaked out to see her lover in the snow and
cold is fearful for her daughter, suggesting that, as
well as romance, there is some peril to be found out
there.