Dockery And Son- L Flashcards
Themes - dockery
-isolation
-time
“Death suited”
-immediately met with image of death
-person is in funeral attire
-sets tone for rest of the poem
“His sons here now”
-realising his age
-shocked at how old he now is and how much time has passed
“I try the door of where i used to live: Locked”
-looked out of his past lifee
-enjambment is reflecting his inability to go back
- he no longer belongs here
- this place is important to him and a landmark in his life but he is nothing special to it in return
“I catch my train, ignored”
-metaphor for the journey of life
-the sense of insignificance
“Canal and clouds and colleges subside slowly from view”
-Alliteration of c and rhythm mimic movement and journey of the train
-subsiding gives the ideas of his life at uni moving behind him and out of his view, time passes slowly through life gradually disappearing
“Where i changed”
Uses the train journey as a conceit for life
-changes trains reflects the important changes in life that are explored in the poem
“Joining and parting lines”
-conceit of train journey used again to reflect how people weave in and out of people’s lives
“To have no son, no wife, no house or land seemed quite natural”
-repetition of no makes it negative
-reflects the societal pressures to conform
-defiled social expectations, links to Larkin as he was never draw to long term relationships or having children
-still feels natural to persona as they are living how they wish
“Only a numbness registered the shock of finding out how much had gone of life”
-recognising how he hasn’t made much of his life hence the numbness showing he might regret lots in his life
“To me it was dilution”
-sees having children or a marriage to weaken a person and take away from their life
“Not from what we think truest or most want to do: those warp tight shut, like doors. They’re more of a style our lives bring with them: habit for a while,
-reach the crux of the poem (most important)
-instead of deciding what we want to do based on desires and interests we are pushed to act and behave in certain ways by society
-may lead us to make important decisions we think we want but are just a continuations of society’s expectations
-this define us and our lives even if we don’t want them to.
“Like sand clouds, thick and close”
-obscuring
-choices coming back to suffocate us
“Whether or not we use it, it goes.”
No matter what we do in life it will end
“Only end of age”
Inevitable ending death
