Maturing into an adult and "rising" up has been conveyed through Rising Five as the child's experience. Nicholson uses various parallel structure, clever imagery, intriguing metonymy and various language techniques to imply the message that rushing towards the future may not be the ideal method of living.
Direct dialogue in the first sentence immediately creates an effect in the reader's mind that the child is having an intimate conversation. Already in the beginning, Nicholson has intentionally made the boy negate the present and choose to be "Rising five". Personification is cleverly used by Nicholson to describe his "little coils of hair that unclick themselves upon his head". This personification crafts an image in the reader's mind that not only is the boy wanting to grow older, however he is trying to elude others into thinking that he is bigger. The "spectacles" that contains "brimful of eyes to stare", the spectacles already is used by Nicholson to vividly portray the child to be again wanting to look older as "spectacles" has connotations of knowledge and wisdom.
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NicholsonsThe metaphor Nicholson uses, "brimful of eyes to stare" suggests that the boy is full and is already wanting more suggesting his own greed for power. Nicholson uses various imagery devices and syntax to suggest to the reader the child has the greed to grow and go into the future, common wants in humanity today.
Imprisonment is subtly hinted throughout the poem through various connotations of the images that Nicholson has produced in Rising five. The boy is described to have "toffee-buckled cheeks", the toffee-buckled cheeks suggests that this boy is trying to eat too much by containing his mouth with too much toffees. Not only does this show his greed, however it also shows his inability to speak and voice out his own opinion.