If, My Darling Flashcards
Who was this poem perhaps inspired by?
Larkin’s long term relationship with Monica Jones
What did James Booth say about the poem?
‘A dramatic monologue addressed to an innocent woman by a self-critical man’
What can be inferred from the title?
‘my’ - possessive and domineering presence - power dynamic
What can be inferred through ‘Not to stop at my eyes’?
Link to the cliche ‘eyes are the window to the soul’ however we stop at his eyes, cannot see past his facade
What device is used in ‘like Alice, with floating skirt into my head’?
Intertexutal reference - sees the woman as naive and child-like, also if she saw the real him she would enter an upside down world of chaos and confusion
What device is used in ‘no tables and chairs/ No mahogany claw-footed sideboards/ No undisturbed embers’?
Anaphoric repetition of negators - emphasises no sense of comfort and how his world would be entirely unfamiliar and deeply uncomfortable to the woman
What device is used in ‘shelves stuffed with small-printed books for the Sabbath’?
Sibiliance highlights a dismissive tone to religion. AO3: ‘absolute balls’
What device is used in ‘money-brown, fish-grey’?
Colour imagery - has connotations of sickliness and contamination conveying speaker’s true self as being defined by a sense of bleakness and disease
What can be inferred through ‘Delusions that shrink to the size of a woman’s glove’?
Symbolic of femininity/ patronising - what she imagined is small compared to what is actually going on in his mind
What device is used in ‘sicken’ ‘unwholesome’ and ‘grave’?
Semantic field of death and decay - speakers true self as unpleasant and corrupted
What device is used in ‘A Grecian statue kicked in the privates’?
Metaphor - the speaker once seen as noble and admirable, would be seen as embarassing and emasculated if she saw the real him
What can be inferred through ‘one double-yoked with meaning and meaning’s rebuttal’?
If she was to face his true self she would be met with contradictions and lies and have to face his inner turmoil.
What is the rhyme scheme like?
Regular ABA and use of tercets. However the uneven verse length represents the chaotic nature of the speakers mind
What could the 3 line structure represent?
- the darling 2. speaker’s illusory self
- speaker’s real self
