If, My Darling, Places, Loved Ones and Church Going Flashcards
La
‘But to jump, like ________, with floating skirt into my head’ (If, My Darling)
Alice
What technique is used here: ‘But to jump, like Alice, with floating skirt’ (If, My Darling)
simile (this could also be considered an intertextual reference)
Why does Larkin have the speaker in If, My Darling compare his partner to Alice (in Wonderland)?
To suggest that he sees her as naive and child-like. He is also portraying how if she saw the real him, like Alice, she would enter an upside-down world of chaos and confusion.
What technique is used here: ‘‘She would find no tables and chairs// She would find no tables and chairs// No mahogany claw-footed sideboards,// No undisturbed embers’ (If, My Darling)
anaphoric repetition/anaphora
In If, My Darling why does Larkin use anaphoric repetition: ‘…no tables and chairs// No mahogany claw-footed sideboards, // No undisturbed embers’
To convey how the world the ‘darling’ would find would be entirely unfamiliar and deeply uncomfortable.
‘Monkey-__________, fish-__________’ (If, My Darling)
brown/grey
In If, My Darling, why does Larkin use colour imagery (‘Monkey-brown, fish-grey’) to describe the speaker’s true self?
These colours are dark and have connotations of sickliness, conveying the speaker’s true self as being defined by a sense of bleakness and disease.
What is the semantic field used in If, My Darling via the following: ‘sicken’, ‘unwholesome’, ‘grave’?
This is a semantic field of death and decay, which is used to present the speaker’s true self as being unpleasant and corrupted.
In If, My Darling, who or what is the ‘Grecian statue kicked in the privates’?
This metaphor represents the speaker. Whereas once his darling may have seen him as noble and admirable (like a ‘Grecian statue’) if she saw the real him she would perceive him to be embarrassing and emasculated (‘kicked in the privates’)
Each one _________ - ___________ with meaning and meaning’s rebuttal’ (If, My Darling)
double-yolked
In If, My Darling, why does Larkin say that the ‘darling’ would hear a noise that is ‘double-yoked with meaning and meaning’s rebuttal’?
To convey that, were she to face the speaker’s true self, the ‘darling’ would hear a mass of contradictions and lies.
‘unpicks the world like a _________’ (If, My Darling)
knot
‘Might knock my darling off her ______________ pivot’ (If, My Darling)
unpriceable
What technique is used here: ‘unpicks the world like a knot’ (If, My Darling)?
simile
If, My Darling is structured as _____________
tercets
Does If, My Darling use a regular rhyme scheme?
Yes, it is an ABA rhyme scheme.
Why does Larkin structure If, My Darling using tercets?
We might suggest the uneven verse length (3 lines) represents the uneven, chaotic nature of the speaker’s mind. Also, the 3-line structure perhaps represents the three people the poem is about: 1. the darling 2. the speaker’s illusory self 3. The speaker’s real self.
‘__________, I have never found’ (Places, Loved Ones)
No
‘This is my _________ / ___________ here I shall stay’ (Places, Loved Ones)
proper ground
