afternoon - philip larkins

Question 1

“Summer is fading: the leaves fall in ones and twos”

Answer 1

transitioning to autumn

• Verb “fading” shows a time passage and it’s a natural process, the fading could be hinting towards the fading of beauty, happiness and so on.
• Noun “summer” shows the prime youth of a person, however, it was said it was “fading” showing the passage of time and a sense of losing its original beauty, happiness and so on.

Question 2

“From trees bordering, the new recreation ground in the hollows of afternoons.”

Answer 2

a newly built playground.

• adjective “new” shows it is the latest built attraction for children.
• Symbol of a playground shows fun and happiness, and it is a place for social. However the adjective “hollow” can be shown that something is missing in the afternoon, which feels like the time is dragging on.

Question 3

“Young mothers assemble at swings and sandpit setting free their children.”

Answer 3

mothers are accompanying the children to play in a playground.

• Verb “assemble” shows a routine as they’re expected to turn up, and it is something they have to do, mundane.
• Enjambment “setting free” highlights a burst of energy of the children.
• Contrast between the verb “assemble” and the adjective “free” showcases that mothers are trapped in a routine, with no say in whether they want to do it or not, but children are free-willed.

Question 4

“at intervals, stand husbands in skilled trades, an estateful of washing”

Answer 4

showing the different roles the dad and mother has to do.

• Noun “intervals” shows that the dad is only there with children sometimes as they are busy with earning money for the family.
• hyperbole “estateful” to shows the domestic drudgery of washing the mother has to do because children have to change clothes very often.

Question 5

“the albums, lettered Our Wedding, lying near the television:”

Answer 5

showing the marriage, that is their happiness of time, is now forgotten.

• Noun “albums” shows precious memories are held in the book yet it has now been neglected beside the TV, as children have become their main priority.

Question 6

“the wind is ruining their courting-places That are still courting places (but the lovers are all in school)”

Answer 6

shows the passage of time.

• Pathetic fallacy “wind” shows emptiness in their once youthful love, and nothing is present anymore and is not used by the lovers anymore.
• Symbol of love “courting-places” shows the symbol of having a relationship and youth yet the parents don’t have it any more.
• Adverb “still” shows that the courting place is still a courting place, yet it is not for the parents anymore it’s for the new generation.

Question 7

“their children, so intent on finding more unripe acorns, expected to be taken home.”

Answer 7

the children are having so much fun.

• Adjective “intent” shows a focus on their own curiously rather than their mothers, curious about the world.
• Adjective “expected” shows the mother are prioritising the children’s needs rather than their own.

Question 8

“Their beauty has thickened.”

Answer 8

describing the features of the mother.

• Metaphor, they are ageing, time is passing or it can be interpreted that their youth has filled out.

Question 9

“Something is pushing them to the side of their own lives.”

Answer 9

shows the individual sacrifice the mothers have the mark to adopt the role.

• Metaphor shows that something is directing them, like how the children is directing them to aid their needs, is being controlled as if they are spectating their own lives (de-individualisation)
• Verb “pushing” shows a lack of care for these mothers.

Question 10

CONTEXT

Answer 10

• Larkin remembered his early years as “unspent” and “boring,” and this time dragging could be his personal experience as the days drags on for him during the afternoon and feels like he needs a distractions.
• His poetry was usually rather negative and miserable.
• Afternoons was part of the collection of poetry called The Whitsun Weddings.
• He was terrified living a life of tangled relationships hence he is terrified of marriage as he consider it to be a fertility rite.
• he writes in an observational style as he writes from what he saw and make interpretation of it.
• Philip Larkin was living in Hull when he wrote Afternoon, he lived in a flat near a park, and would walk through it.
• Afternoons was written in the late 1950s
• He lived a quite restricted lives so he only writes from what he have seen.
• English poet
• restricted life, n ever married, don’t have children, worked at librarian in Hull.
• highly interested in the lives of ordinary people.