Afternoons SS Flashcards
Afternoons
- temporal marker
- creates implication of the dissipating of life as day slowly wanes away into the night.
- indicates the transition of time.
‘Summer is fading: the leaves fall in ones and twos’
‘Fading’ —> adjective portrays a dwindling and decreasing nature when portraying ‘summer’.
- ‘summer’ —> connotes to the idea of life and joy. This can show that joy is fading within the lives of families and people.
- ‘ones and twos’ —> can refer to a marital relationship as both or one of the partners struggle. This can be shown by ‘fall’ —> can be symbolic of the withering of a relationship similar to the withering of leaves.
In the hollows of afternoons young mothers assemble’
‘Hollows of afternoon’s’ —> strong use of assonance in the succession of vowels can indicate a sense of suffering portraying it as soft and diminishing.
- ‘young’ —> adjective can be used by Larkin to criticise ‘young’ families where the partners have been deprived of their freedom by the burden of a family.
‘Mothers’ —> uses a plural noun to portray the gathering of people as adhering to stereotypes of women handling domestic family issues.
‘Behind them, at intervals, stand husbands in skilled trades’
- ‘behind’ —> preposition creates a sense of distance between the fathers and their families. This physical distance can allude to the emotional distance Betern families as fathers take a passive role.
- ‘intervals’—> noun connotes to the idea of being irregular and inconsistent which portrayed fathers as being intermittent and not fully committed to their families hence criticising their non-commits nature.
- ‘in skilled trades’ —> Larkin wrote this poem in the 1950’s under the Whitsun weddings book. During this period of time, England was undergoing massive change after World War Two and their was a growing divide between the families of the lower class. In this, he is criticises the patriarchal figures of the working class mileau.
‘An estate full of washing, and the albums, lettered Our wedding, lying near the television’
- ‘estateful of washing’ —> hyperbolic lexicon is used as an ‘estate’ refers to a large domesticated setting. Uses domestic lexicon to highlight the poem’s purpose of portraying the struggle of working class families.
- Hyperbolic language portrays the large extent at which the mundane chores are taking up time within marital relationships causing detachments between families.
- ‘our wedding’ —> album being placed near ‘television’ —> portrays loss of value as it is not stored in a coveted location. This portrays a careless nature around marital values and their loss of significance.
‘Telvision’ —> can be a techno centric reference portraying families’ obsession with technology causing the insignificance placed on relationships.
‘The wind is ruining their courting places’
- ‘wind’ —> can highlight the fragility of marital relationships as locations of romance can be destroyed by nature without much resistance. This can portray the, as vacant as there is no-one present to prevent the ‘ruin’ of courting places.
‘Ruining’ —> can imply how ‘courting places’ like marriages are decaying and losing their value.
‘There are still courting places (but the lovers are still in school)’
- parenthesis indicates how writer is directly speaking to the reader and places focus on the youth of lovers.
‘Lovers are still in school’ —> noun ‘school’ creates imagery of youth portraying lovers as too immature and still too young and undeveloped for romantic relationships. This can criticise the nature of relationships in the youth of lovers as they may not be mature or understanding of the intricacies of relationships.
‘Children, so intent on finding more unripe acorns, expect to be taken home.’
‘Children’ —> creates impression of infancy and youth portraying lovers as immature and child-like in their lack of maturity.
- metaphor for teenagers searching for relationships before being ready.
- This is shown in ‘unripe’ —> portraying a sense of incompletion in development and portraying and unreadiness for love.
‘Intent’ —> can portray sense of desperation among young people for love despite not being ready for it. Criticises the eager and immature nature of lovers.
‘Beauty has thickened. Something is pushing them to the side of their own lives’
‘Beauty has thickened’ —> can be metaphorical for the idea that it is tougher to find true beauty within love as ‘thick’ connotes to becoming harder or stiffer making something tougher.
- ‘something’ —> term is very ambiguous portraying a sense of unknown and lack of clarity around the reason for struggling in family relationships. Makes the issues seem more insurmountable as people can not even detect the issues in their lives.
- pushing them to the side’ —> portrays a sense of decentralisation as people are losing the essence of their lives and are losing control of their lives. Can indicate a sense of fragmentation as people struggle with their own lives.
