The relationship between the Nugents and Francie is paradoxical. Francie's longs for their acceptance but his detachment from reality means he alienates their family to the nth degree. McCabe stresses this tension through his construction of the first person narrative in a stream of consciousness style. It means we experience Francie's inability to distinguish between his fantasies and the exterior reality. This is observed with the personification of the fire in the Nugent's home. He imagines it says "come on in," and "reached out" to him. This engenders pathos as we grasp Francie's longing for the stability of their family home. This is intensified with McCabe's tableau of the insider and outsider. It is made clear that Francie is a voyeur and intruder to their family home, as he spends the scene either taking "a look in the window" or only "slightly inside the hall". The spatial organisation of the text makes obvious how Francie is rejected by the Nugents.
McCabe stresses the lack of thought process in Francie's actions with the disintegration of the grammatical structure. From "I made sure..." to "...a big grunt." is completely void of punctuation. This febrile recollection of events is indicative of how Francie loses control of his actions when encountering the Nugents. Mrs Nugent is denied autonomy in this scene, with her direct speech absorbed into his own. "She said what do you want", this lack of speech marks is suggestive of Francie's egocentric narrative. So engrossed in the moment, Francie fails to observe the patent signs of Mrs Nugent's discomfort. He notes that she goes "pick pick" at her clothes peg, without any apprehension she feels uncomfortable in his presence. His focus on physical sensations and sounds indicates his lack of emotional complexity.
McCabe emphasises Francie's awareness of his social inferiority in the light of their trappings of middle class wealth with the anaphora of "high up". While his tone is contemptuous and mocking, it is evident that Francie's draws parallels between his father and the success of Mr Nugent. This tension is accentuated further with the use of colloquial language, "the big briar stuck in his gob", McCabe is highlighting the gap between their social backgrounds.
McCabe writes Francie's language in a tragi-comic vein as to underline Francie's escapism. His speech is extremely misplaced, he says, "ah its for the kids really". This pattern of speech is typical of an adult, not a child starting a conversation under the premise to go for "a few kicks". While his misconceived manner of speaking is comical, it ultimitaly elicits pathos as Francie is desperately seeking Mrs Nugent's acceptance. This is part of a greater pattern of escapism. Francie assumes a more mature identity and gives Mrs Nugent the comical nickname "Mrs Nooge" to create distance from reality. The unreliability of his narration is due to his desire to escape from the grim reality that he is unwelcome, as evidenced by Mrs Nugent's aggressive tone, "what do you want".
McCabe's use of pig imagery is most disturbing of all. This imagery was intended to insult Francie in a previous scene, we now see, however, how he treats it as a badge of honour. He gets down "on all fours" and "gave a big grunt", laughing while doing so. Francie finds it entertaining to dehumanise himself as it undermines the Nugent's contempt for him. While he believes it would "cheer Mrs Nugent up" we already have an indication that Francie despises her. This is observed in his tone, "Cupids bow lips! What a joke!", it is aggressively contemptuous. All in all, we can conclude that Francie and the Nugent's relationship is toxic. Francie longs to be accepted by them, however, whenever they reject him due to his inappropriate behaviour, we find he lashes out in retaliation.
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