Big Phil

Question 1

Dry- point
opening: ‘endlessly, time honoured irritating’

Answer 1

constant inevitable desire that disrupts his routine of everyday life.
his desire is overwhelming

Question 2

‘silently, it inflates, till we’re enclosed’

Answer 2

‘we’re’ : everyone? how we’re victims to our base desires which is the unavoidable truth

Question 3

‘bestial,intent, real.’

Answer 3

animal like
after the tricolon there is an endstop = finality of his ejaculation.

Question 4

‘bright, blown walls collapse’

Answer 4

plosive alliteration conveys the release of destruction
aspect of harshness and aggression

Question 5

‘sad scapes…’

Answer 5

sense lingering guilt & shame

Question 6

‘what ashen hills! what salted shrunken lakes!’
sibilance

Answer 6

natural imagery that is deprived of light, ash comes after a fire.
becomes soft & small mirroring how speaker feels after the release

Question 7

‘Birmingham magic’

Answer 7

Birmingham = famous for the manufacture of rings.
idea that of sex before marriage
innocence purity and sex

Question 8

‘padlocked cube of light’

Answer 8

lacks light, therefore is unable to reach purity

Question 9

‘we neither define nor prove, where you, we dream, obtain no right of entry.’

Answer 9

duplicity, argument marker and reflects the innocence of married life.
purity is unachievable due to his strong sexual desires

Question 10

Larkin context to Dry Point
what was Larkins quote???
‘having sex is like asking someone to……???’

Answer 10

1955: modernised attitudes to sex
swinging 60s, contraceptions

‘…blow your nose’
compares sex to a mundane thing, reduces personal, intimate act to something mechanical🙄

Question 11

Dry point structure

Answer 11

quatrains: never ending constant desire, almost a cyclical structure
lack of regular rhyme scheme conveying lack of control over base desires

Question 12

which poem would you link Dry Point to ?

Answer 12

deceptions

Question 13

Places, loved ones (title)

Answer 13

lack of belonging,
belonging to a person

Question 14

‘i have never found the place where i could say’
‘this is my proper ground, here i shall stay’

Answer 14

never found the one/ or a home
voice of society, as most people have found someone
speaker has an outsider dynamic

Question 15

‘ instant claim on everything i own, down to my name;’

Answer 15

feels as if marriage is a social contract, and results in ‘bloody hell’

Question 16

‘you want no choice… you ask them to bear…’

Answer 16

‘you’ = society, which speaker isn’t apart of.
speaker doesn’t want place in a marriage that restricts him.

Question 17

‘the girl a dolt.’
end stop conveys ?

Answer 17

end of freedom
you have to stay in the marriage

Question 18

how does the speakers view change as he says, ‘yet, having missed them… you’re bound…’

Answer 18

the volta conveys larkin pinpointing his own deception.
his envy perhaps, being self deceived as he may want this deep down and is yet still restricted tho alone. pretends he is wiser to keep away but he maybe wants both