King of the Toilets

The poem “King of the Toilets” by Peter Dixon is about a boy named Maurice. The main theme in this poem is “Loneliness”. Maurice is rejected by everyone in his school and would spend all his free time alone in the toilets. This causes him to be a schoolyard bully and to pick on the younger children in school.
One depiction of Maurice’s loneliness is the way he does everything alone. His loneliness has lead to him only spending time with the toilets, which like him stand on the sidelines “by the wall – by the shed”, far away from the main school building where everyone else is. Every morning, Maurice is desperate to get into the toilets and enters them “FIRST” as they are where he really belongs and is “King”. He also eats “lunch in the toilets”, which shows that Maurice is completely isolated from everyone else as mealtimes in school connotates socialisation with friends, but Maurice does not have any friends and so has to eat alone. Therefore, the theme of this poem has been greatly depicted by his solitary behaviour, as it shows he does not have any friends and is lonely.
Another depiction of the theme of “Loneliness” would be Maurice seeking attention. Maurice is a bully and would “frighten the new little infants”, who are helpless victims of Maurice’s “bellows and yellings and roars”. He has also locked a cubicle with “five juniors stuck fast inside” and threw “piles of old comics at them”, causing them to be extremely frightened. He probably bullies people so that he can get attention from someone, be it the victims or authority figures. He also eats with “his food on the floor” which is extremely disgusting and unhygienic. By doing this, he is trying to seek attention from any adult who might walk into the toilets and discover him eating food off the toilet floor. Maurice also “flooded the lower school library” with toilet water to gain the attention of everyone in the school and also as a sign of rebellion. Therefore, Maurice being attention-seeking also