Larkin Flashcards
Home is so sad - Stanza 1 key quotes:
1. ‘H i s s.’
2. ‘S t t c o t l t g’
3. ‘bereft o a t p, i w’
- ‘Home is so Sad.’ abrupt & monosyllabic
end stop - declarative & stative.
Antithesis of ‘Home is where the heart is’ - subversive house - fails to fulfil its expected purpose, reflecting the failures of the domestic unit itself. - Shaped to the comfort of the last to go - personification, house aims to please and fulfil the wants & needs of its inhabitants but ultimately is outgrown.
- ‘bereft of anyone to please, it withers…’ - Personification continues: very mournful, lack of nourishment & vitality which suggests that lacking a domestic unit is an unnatural state as the home physically deteriorates.
Home is so sad - Stanza 2 key quotes
1. ‘j s a h t o t b/L s f w’
2. ‘the p…the c…m in the p s…T v.’
- ‘joyous shot at how things ought to be/Long fallen wide’ - enjambment symbolises the deterioration of the domestic unit
- ‘joyous shot’ - used to be a hopeful action/relationship but this plan has now been abandoned. Shot suggests a target which introduces this idea of life as a gamble, things are determined by chance and luck. Also indicative of a certain social standard that is meant to be achieved, reinforced by ‘ought’ which depicts a rigidity of social expectations, perhaps the often advertised nuclear family.
- separation of ‘be’ and ‘long fallen wide’ - symbolic of house’s failure to attain expectations
- ‘the pictures…the cutlery…music in the piano stool…That vase.’ list of domestic, personal items that suggest unfulfillment as they act more as relics or props than functional items. Music has a potential for joy but doesn’t come to fruition as it isn’t played & the vase is empty, suggesting the hollowness of the relationship.
Prop-like quality = façade of the successful domestic unit, this is an an act to maintain appearances & conform to expectations lest one be outcast.
AO5: Shapiro: ‘uses commonplace items…gives chilling poignancy’
Home is So Sad Stanza 1 Rhyme
ABABA - lines not coupled = exaggerates the isolation of the house & the breakdown of the domestic unit as there is no unity.
- alternate rhyme scheme emphasises the grieving nature ‘stays as it was left/instead bereft…’ and the coupling of rhymes suggests a continual pursuit for the ‘unity’ that there once was
- B rhymes - sighing, mourning as they end on long ‘o’ sounds i.e. ‘go’ and ‘so’.
Home is so sad Stanza 2 Rhyme
half-rhyme - rhyme degenerates ‘‘started as…how it was…that vase’ - reflecting how the house has failed to fulfil its purpose of a home as it cannot achieve unity much as the poem fails to achieve unity of sound.
- reflects disruption of domestic order?
Sunny Prestatyn - vicious abuse of the female
1. ‘She was s u ‘
2. ‘Autographed T T’
3. ‘used a k o s t s r t’
4. ‘ a great t t’
- ‘she was slapped up’: ‘slapped up’ denotes a general disdain or lack of care for this woman.
AO3: REF. to the normalisation of domestic violence in typical 1950s relationships? - ‘Autographed Titch Thomas’: Male entitlement to the female body as claims ownership through autographing. Fitting aptronym ‘Titch Thomas’ sees Larkin adopt a feminist stance as he pokes fun at males such as ‘Titch Thomas’ who commit these acts of projected violence against women => directly attacks the male form by mocking the size of ‘Titch Thomas’, ‘Titch’ suggesting an unnatural shortness or diminutive status. Does Larkin EMASCULATE these men?
- ‘used a knife or something to stab right through…’: Phallic image of a ‘knife’ used commit the highly vicious & fetishized act of ‘penetration’ => male desire to assert control over the female through sexual violence.
- ‘a great transverse tear’: vast, expansive quality of this destructive act, suggests a desire to inflict the utmost pain on & utterly destroy the female form.
Sunny prestatyn - grotesque dehumanisation of the female form:
1. ‘tautened w s…s t e f h t a/S b-l a’
2. ‘huge t…f c’
3. ‘set h a a t c a b’
4. ‘Her f w s t a b e’
- ‘tautened white satin…seemed to expand from her thighs and/Spread breast-lifting arms’: highly sexualised & idealised image of the female body, evocative of the sense that she is the ideal feminine form & by attaining this image of beauty other women will experience life as a state of nirvana or a tropical paradise. Commodification of female sex appeal to sell an ‘idea’ of a location - a warning of the dangers of vanity which can mutate one’s own self-image.
- ‘huge tits…fissured crotch’: bawdy & raunchy image used to degrade the female & her sexuality/sex appeal - reinforced through the degrading colloquial lang. Subversion of the appealing attributes of the female form & transforms them into a grotesque state, perhaps this is Larkin’s own critique that those who prescribe to these ‘unnatural’ depictions of female beauty in advertising are part of a systematic process of dehumanisation.
- ‘set her astride a tuberous cock and balls’: locating the woman ‘astride’ this visually graphic image posits the notion that women’s sole purpose is the provision of male sexual gratification.
- ‘Her face was snaggle toothed and boss eyed.’ = ‘uglifying’ this woman suggests a complete lack of respect for her. perhaps this process actually creates sympathy for the woman as an abused figure as she endured physical damage for male gratification.
Essential Beauty stanza 1 quotes:
1. ‘block e o s..s g w c, c s w p..’
2. ‘above the g, a g k s i b’
3. ‘Well-balanced f, o t s, t c, e t y..’
4. ‘Radiant b’
- SEMANTIC FIELD OF CONCEALMENT: ‘block ends of streets….screen graves with custard, cover slums with praise…’ - suggests dishonesty, a desire to restrict access to the truth. The adverts act as a façade of economic prosperity for the brutal reality of post-war Britain. Larkin’s anger at the arrogance of advertisement companies who attempt to conceal the realities of what the everyday person faced.
- ‘above the gutter… a knife sinks into golden butter’ - very cruel juxtapositioning = which serves as a reminder of the illusion that one can aspire to this affluent lifestyle of purchasing commodities. The actual physical/spatial difference & distance i.e. the fact that the knife is ‘high above’ evokes a sense of vast distance, underlining the fact that this is an astronomical sort of dream, extremely unachievable for the everyday person.
‘gutter’ = filth, grimy vs. ‘golden’ = precious, expensive, prized. => contrasting images of stark reality of human suffering and the idealised, heavenly portrayal of the environment = metaphor for Britain’s projection of itself as a wealthy nation in the Post-War era yet its failure to truly address or resolve issues of poverty.
- ‘Well balanced families…owe their smiles, their cars, even their youth…’ Creates a sense of a stable nuclear family, the heteronormative and capitalist ideal to aspire to. ‘Well balanced’ suggests an equality, perhaps of opportunity, reflecting the misguided belief that the ‘ideal’ life is an obtainable aspiration for all. Yet they are indebted to these commodities as they owe their very vitality to consumerism = consumerism as a devilish figure.
- ‘Radiant bars’ = heavenly, illuminating, blinding. Heavenly associations suggest that consumerism and capitalism is equatable to a sort of epiphany or an enlightenment as the ability to consume these new goods is a radical step in technology. However, the blinding quality is emblematic of Larkin’s utter disdain for the consumer culture of the 1950s as he notes that people have become blinded by their utter greed and overconsumption and fail to see the reality of people suffering in poverty.
Essential Beauty stanza 2 quotes:
1. ‘rise s t p p c, p f’
2. ‘dark r p…G G’ t…d s’
3. ‘boy p h h o’
- ‘rise serenely to proclaim pure crust, pure foam’ evokes an image of grace and genteel manners. The repetition of ‘pure’ acts as a sort of reaffirming of the perfect state of society that advertisements tried to push. The billboards themselves are personified, perhaps adopting the mannerisms of politicians of the post-war era who seemed naively unaware of the quality of life the average person was living & attempting to reassure the public that society could be rebuilt to a better standard.
- SF of death & decay:
‘dark raftered pubs…Granny Graveclothes’ tea…dying smokers’ = almost claustrophobic & oppressive sense of environment, the all consuming nature of this darkness and death emphasises the inescapability of reality, eventually we will all have to face death in some form. Also reflects the sheer decaying state that Britain was left in as a result of bombing during WW2 and the sense that death and mortality still loomed over the population. - ‘boy puking his heart out’ = violent, visceral physical rejection = symbolic of society’s rejection of imposed consumerism/advertisements. Extremely graphic imagery depicts the true, unsightly aspects of reality that cannot be easily screened over.
Self’s the man - use of pronouns
refers to his wife only by ‘a woman’, ‘her’ ‘she takes’ & reference to his children as ‘the nippers’ - deeply depersonalises & dehumanises Arnold’s wife as she lacks her own identity outside of this marriage, becoming Arnold’s property
Self’s the Man stanzas 1, 2, 3, 4 quotes
1. ‘married a w t s h g a/n s t a d’
2. ‘the m h g f w h l o w’s t a h p’
3. ‘pay for t k c, t d, t e f’
4. ‘Put a s i t w/h h n t a a’
5. ‘the n t w r…a t h t p…a t l t h m’
- ‘married a woman to stop her getting away/now she’s there all day’ - depicts marriage as a form of socio-economic entrapment for the female, the strict regulations of the relationship/marriage dynamic are reinforced through the tight AABB rhyme scheme which evokes a sense of the monotonous drudgery of life.
- ‘the money he gets for wasting his life on work/she takes as her perk’ - sympathy devt. for Arnold as he is trapped in a cycle of work. cynical language used to give voice to the frustrations of the male within this marital dynamic. This villainises the wife as through her husband’s view she is exploitative, using the relationship to her own financial advantage, ‘perk’ does imply that there is a sense of a transactional relationship here as the wife is entirely dependent on her husband, a figure of male authority, to gain purchasing power.
- ‘pay for the kiddies clobber…the drier…the electric fire’ triadic list of expenses = wasteful spending on inessentials, perhaps reflecting how the pursuit of consumerism is essentially meaningless/a waste of money. Feminist angle = contrasts the ‘perk’ as there is no mention of the wife buying herself anything.
- ‘Put a screw in this wall/he has no time at all’ = imperatives, demanding, incessant. AO3: Andy Capp & the Henpecked husband stereotype as Arnold believes that he is constantly harassed by his wife & has no time to relax bc marriage has removed his freedom.
- ‘the nippers to wheel round…and the hall to paint…and that letter to her mother’ constant use of ‘and’ allows an extension of this list of chores which become endless. Women become a burden to Arnold as not only is he ‘trapped’ in his marriage but he is to an extent dominated by women, especially his mother in law.
AO3: The domineering mother-in-law trope in comedy often saw ‘mothers-in-law’ depicted as exceptionally bossy and wrongfully dictating to a man.
Self’s the Man - Stanzas 5,6,7,8 quotes
1. ‘playing h o g…I’m a b h’
- ‘playing his own game’ vs.’Im a better hand’ = the metaphor of gambling is used as a way to critique the pursuit of marriage. Gambling metaphor suggests that by marrying, Arnold has played into the social expectations of marriage and recognises the need to marry as a means of conformity.
The speaker’s own assertion that ‘I’m a better hand’ = recognition of how to play the system, assuming a sense of superiority as they recognise that they haven’t condemned themselves to this life of pressure and dissatisfaction.
Fem. perspective: ‘own game’ suggests that life, and this marriage, have been constructed under Arnold’s rules, it is Arnold who is in utter control.
Ambulances stanzas 1 & 2 key quotes
1. ‘Closed l c’
2. ‘They come to r a a k/ a s i t a v’
3. ‘Wild white face o r s b’
- ‘Closed like confessionals’ - religious simile = a reconciliation of sin through death. Sacred space, offers privacy and a sense of intimacy and dignity in death.
‘Closed’ = utter finality of death, unable to ‘enter’ through the doors of life again i.e. reanimate as they have crossed over this threshold. - ‘They come to rest at any kerb/all streets in time are visited’ evocative of the pervading sense of death that is ever-present within life, it is an inescapable fact of existence as ‘any’ and ‘all’ reinforce the idea that we all must come face to face with death at some point, a lamentation in the indiscriminatory quality of death.
- ‘Wild white face overtops red stretcher blankets’ - the alliterative ‘w’ sounds create a tremulous quality, perhaps emulating a fear of death. ‘Wild white’ = ghostly, drained of vitality. Perhaps the whiteness reflects the bleakness of the concept of death itself or perhaps a newfound peace and tranquillity in death.
Ambulances Stanza 3,4,5,6
Fill in these quotes & analyse.
1. ‘sense the…….that…all we do…’
- ‘So…and…and..’
- ‘sudden…loss’
- ‘Dulls…all we are’
- ‘sense the solving emptiness that lies under all we do’ = Exposing the universal nature of both life and death, We are all born, and therefore must die. Metaphor of emptiness being a living being in our lives, it hovers under all of our actions, joys and memories. Larkin presents a cynical view on life’s purpose and the true contentment we receive, for there is an ‘emptiness’ that none of us can escape.
- ‘So permanent and blank and true’ SF of enlightenment as death is reimagined as more than just a finality of physical existence but as a sweet release from life and a comfort as it’s blank nature acts as a way out of life’s complexities and turmoil.
- ‘sudden shut of loss’ -sibilance stresses the ironically shocking nature of death as despite the fact that death is a fact of life, and something we are acutely aware will happen to us all, it is still frightening when it occurs, precisely because people are so caught up in their everyday that they forget about the reality of existence - it must come to an end.
- ‘dulls to distance all we are’: receding sound of the ambulance sirens as it carries the dead body with it. In this tender and raw moment of death, the only reminder of our preservation of life is this blaring siren. Death depicted as a fleeting incident which is soon forgotten about in the vast expanse of everyday life, yet it still has the potential to interrupt daily going-ons through its ‘blaring siren’ effect. Ambulances carry the physical, tangible reminders of our existences, but not our memories and souls.
Study of Reading Habits - growth of violence/desire to inflict violence
- ‘deal out t o r h/ t d d t m s’
- ‘my cloak a f/ h r t i t d’
- ‘the women i c w s’
- ’ I broke t u l m’
Stanza 1: a desire to use violence as a means to overcome bullying - masculine bravado
- ‘deal out the old right hook/ to dirty dogs twice my size’ = assumes a masculine persona through the imagined use of violence, gives him a form of empowerment.
Stanza 2: this desire to inflict physical harm evolves into a vicious desire to brutalise them female.
- ‘my cloak and fangs/Had ripping times in the dark’.: ripping = connotations of joy through the colloquial term of a ‘ripping yarn’ thereby trivialising violence against women as something for men to delight in.
‘the women I clubbed with sex’ = incapacitates women for his own pleasure. Sex morphs into a violent act and a way to overpower the woman => gives him a feeling of utter control and superiority.
‘I broke them up like meringues’: simile depicts women as fragile and delicate delicacies prone to dissolving easily. ‘broke them up’ suggests a complete shattering and fragmenting of the female’s physical body. ALTERNATIVELY could depict the persona’s fracturing of stereotypes of women as meek and docile, does he use sex and sexuality as a means of liberating women from restrictive stereotypes concerning their sexual purity.
RHYME: ‘fangs’ & ‘meringues’ depict an undercurrent of sexual frustration.
A study of reading habits - immersion and escapism that reading provides vs its lack of effect in masking reality in later life
- ‘My n i a b’
- ‘me and m c a f’
- ‘Don’t read m n’
- ‘the dude who l t g d….the chap w y…seem f t f n’
‘my nose in a book…worth ruining my eyes’ & ‘me and my cloak and fangs’ use of physical, bodily language allows the speaker to almost ‘dismember’ himself, deconstructing his physical, earthly body to allow full immersion into the books/fantasy. The speaker then literally begins to assume the physical attributes of the characters, exemplifying his utter desire for escapism as he transforms his physical appearance.
VS
‘Don’t read much now’ = utterly dismissive and almost petulant in the rejection of books and literature. Establishes a sense of dissatisfaction with literature as a transportive device.
‘the dude who lets the girl down….the chap whose yellow…seem far to familiar now’ = colloquial lang. allows the speaker to adopt a demeaning tone as he demonstrates a distaste for the commonality of life. The whimsical aspect of literature is lost with age as his maturity provides him with a recognition of the ills or rather the dullness of life.
What is notable about the rhyme scheme in Ambulances?
The first and last lines of each stanza rhyme with eachother, this perhaps plays into the idea of death as a natural component of earthly existence, a feature of the circle of life itself. i.e. ‘they thread/all streets in times are visited’ = the continuous journey of the ambulance, as a metaphor for death, is exemplified.
Dockery and son = use of physical surroundings/natural environment to explore social pressures.
1. ‘I t t d o w I u t l: L’
2. ‘T l s d w’
3. ‘W a t p t i e’
4. ‘U m’
- ‘I try the door of where I used to live: Locked.’ = This threshold imagery suggests an inability to progress or return to a previous state. He has reached a new stage in life and can now no longer enjoy the childish endeavours he used to pursue as he has to face new social pressures, namely the expectation of bearing a son.
- ‘The lawn spreads dazzlingly wide’ = vast, alluring expanse with gleaming, precious connotations of ‘dazzlingly’. Perhaps indicative of the great potential for knowledge & life itself outside of the boundaries of school.
‘dazzlingly’ = almost blinding, perhaps reflecting how people can become blinded by their vociferous desire to pursue social expectations, losing their own desires in the process.
- ‘walked along the platform to its end’ furthers this boundary/threshold image as once again an ‘ending’ of a forged path occurs? This forces the speaker to choose his own path in life, potentially by walking this prescribed, man-made path/track, this is the speaker’s attempt to strive to meet society’s desires, yet he is now able to make his own decisions and pursue a different pathway.
- ‘Unhindered moon’ = depicts the natural, planetary world as experiencing freedom from the socially imposed restraints society enforces. Creates a sense of jealousy as the speaker seems to admire or even envy the sheer freedom of the moon which still holds purpose and value within everyday life. = perhaps the speaker aspires to be like the moon in the sense that they wish to cast off social expectations yet maintain a purpose w/in society = this is Larkin positing the view that there is still purpose and value to be found in a life that doesn’t abide by prescriptive roles and expectations.
Dockery and son = motif of mathematics:
1. ‘Convinced…h s b a t’
2. ‘Why did he think a t m i? T m i w d’
- ‘convinced…he should be added to’ mathematics used as a metaphor for reproduction and the depiction of male lineage as an almost ‘logical’ ideal to achieve in life.
- ‘why did he think adding meant increase?/To me it was dilution’ = ‘dilution’ evokes an image of watering down the strength of the pure form of an item. Implication that this dilution through lineage and producing a son acts as a gradual reduction of character, eroding a person’s personality through fatherhood.
Mr Bleaney - social isolation & deterioration:
- ‘Flowered curtains…t & f’
- ‘Bed, upright, c, s w b…n r f b o b.’
- ‘stood and watch the frigid wind…’
- ‘Flowered curtains, thin and frayed’ = deteriorating domestic setting, suggests a lack of vitality and sustenance and that these ‘curtains’ have been worn down over time, perhaps by the pressures of life? ‘Flowery’ suggests a more feminine possession , indicating that these curtains are infact a ‘hand-me-down’ from the landlady herself. notably Mr Bleaney appears to have NO possessions of his own, AO3: the constant repeat of ‘no’ reflecting the complete lack of purchasing power of the proletariat as the working class of post-war industrialised Britain were paid poorly, not highly valued for their work, and thus could not afford to purchase personal items.
- ‘Bed, upright, chair, sixty watt bulb…,no room for books or bags’ - continuous ‘list’ reinforces this utter lack of physical space despite the incredibly sparse appearance of this habitation, the claustrophobia is reinforced by the plosive alliteration . ‘no books or bags’ = depiction of an utter absence of personal belongings, crafting quote a bleak image as Bleaney seems to have no purchasing power - perhaps a result of his unemployment? Books also point to the presence of an intellectual mind, yet the utter absence of such implies that Mr Bleaney himself is not an articulate or intelligent man => he does not ‘invest’ his wages properly? - seemingly reinforcing Larkin’s distaste for the working class and the unemployed who he viewed as inherently lazy.
AO3/5: Larkin said the cure to unemployment would be to slash unemployment benefits. & also education for the likes of Bleaney = unattainable as was restricted by financial ability to purchase good quality education.
- ‘stood and watch the frigid wind…lay on the fusty bed’ = utter lack of mobility as ‘stood…watch…lay’ suggest a sort of passiveness and a detachment from engagement in life, Mr Bleaney quite literally watches the world go by . = Stasis & static life implies an inability to truly derive joy from life without truly engaging with others, metaphorically represents the lack of social mobility for the downtrodden working class.
‘frigid wind’ = perhaps emblematic of his social rejection by a cruel, unaccepting society which deems him worthless & confining him to this space of relative squalor: ‘fusty bed’.
Mr Bleaney: motif of death?:
- ‘the whole time…h w a t b’
- ‘having no more to show…t o h b’
- ‘the whole time he was at the Bodies’ => the colloquial ref. to car manufacturing conflates manual labour with drudgery and monotony & overall equates the participation in manufacturing to an agonising death. => by joining the workforce, workers face the death of their personalities and social lives as they become yet another ‘expendable’ advancing the profits of large corporations.
- ‘having no more to show than one hired box…’ = diminutive ‘box’ reflects the minimised space available to the proletariat, they are unable to afford anything of greater ‘value’ bc of their socio-economic positions. A hugely existential metaphor for a coffin = Larkin muses on the worth of life through this as he comes to the conclusion that, in a capitalistic society, those of a lower class who have no purchasing power lead lives of little worth or notability as they have no physical evidence of their existence other than the coffin that they are buried in. Also continues the idea of this flat as a sort of ‘death’ for Bleaney in terms of his social life etc.
Mr Bleaney: lack of personalisation = plight of the working class?:
- ‘till they…m h’
- no room…f b o b’
- ‘I lie where Mr Bleaney lay, a s m f o t s s s’
- ‘…till they moved him’ = reflects an inability to move/significantly lacking autonomy as this conglomerate ‘they’, perhaps a metaphor for the government or oppressive capitalistic systems, controls all aspects of Bleaney’s life.
- ‘no room for books or bags…’ => perhaps links to 1940-50s education culture excluding the working class due to an inability to invest in private school, but also through the plosive alliteration, indicates how there is physically no available room for freedom of self-expression. Perhaps this is a metaphor for employers expectations of workers who they depicted as expendable figures lacking personal lives whose sole purpose was to follow instructions pertaining to their work.
- ‘I lie where Mr Bleaney lay, and stub my fags on the same saucer-souvenir..’ growing depersonalisation of the speaker as they begin to mimic Bleaney’s own actions & are stripped of their own possessions, relegated to using Bleaney’s saucer-souvenir. => points to cyclical fate of the working class? The sibilance of ‘same saucer-souvenir’ creates a prolonged tone, reinforcing that this is a rather arduous existence for both the speaker and Bleaney which fosters complete resentment & discontent.
Faith Healing: Mockery of those who Blindly follow religion
- ‘slowly the women…t…w…h…s’
- ‘some….S…s…s…s…s’
- ‘dumb…a…i…c…w…t…s…s…thinking…a…v…a…l…c…t…a’
- ‘their…t…t…b, t…e…s…g’
- ‘Moustached…i…f…f…t…s’
- ‘Slowly the women file to where he stands’ = ‘file’ evokes a controlled, orderly march which reveals the sheer control the ‘religious’ leader maintains over them. Dehumanised image of these women as they become mindless creatures incapable of autonomy.
- ‘some Sheepishly stray…some stay stiff’: herding image subverts the biblical image of Jesus as a shepherd figure herding his flock of followers, viciously attacking those who exploit religion to gain money/religion as a whole as religion is depicted as leading people down the ‘wrong’ path. The continued sibilance conjures a bitter, venomous speaker who spits insults at these brainless followers who seem completely unable to decide which path to follow => lack of free will
- dumb and idiot child within them still survives…thinking a voice at last calls them alone’: lang. of immaturity & naivety reinforced by the infantilisation of these women as ‘child[ren]’ suggesting that they are more susceptible to psychological exploitation through religion. ‘thinking’ suggests a delusion as it implies that this is not reality/truthful.
- ‘their thick tongues blort, their eyes squeeze grief’ =polysemic quality of ‘thick’ plays into the mockery of these women as dense. ‘blort’ = a play on ‘blurt’ which evokes an inability to vocalise, unintelligible/unformulated language. Harsh consonant sounds reflect the guttural quality of this gurgling.
- ‘Moustached in flowered frocks they shake’ = continues the grotesque morphing of these women into figures of ridicule as a means of scathingly critiquing their idiocy & blind naivety in trusting the ‘Faith Healer’ figure.
Whitsun weddings: Marriage as a façade/criticism of marriage:
- ‘girls in parodies o f… all p i’
- ‘women shared t s l a h f’
- ‘girls gripping their handbags tighter…s a a r w’
- ‘girls in parodies of fashion…all posed irresolutely’: the metafictional motif of artifice & performance of these women as ‘wives’ critiques the overall ‘show’ of marriage as an institution/system. = portrays these women as ‘costumed’ in an uncomfortable & unnatural manner, demonstrating that they are ill-prepared for marriage.
‘posed’: unnatural positions, morphed into mannequins = reflect social expectation of women acquiescing to male desires, easily malleable & manipulated into certain roles.
- ‘women shared the secret like a happy funeral’: oxymoronic phrase suggests that while weddings initially seem like a jovial event, a much more sinister fact awaits these women. The deathly connotations of ‘funeral’ evoke the melancholy sense that weddings will lead to the ‘death’ of a woman’s childhood innocence as marriage marks the shift into adulthood. AO5: Perhaps also suggestive of how the feminine identity as an individual is lost, replaced by the relational label of ‘wife’.
- ‘girls, gripping their handbags tighter, stared at a religious wounding’: motif of fearful fascination indicated through ‘gripping’ & ‘stared’ which reveals their horror at the future of marriage as are completely unwilling to relinquish their juvenile status by engaging in sexual acts expected in marriage.
‘religious wounding’ = marriage portrayed as wholly destructive to the female, physically and psychologically as they relinquish child-like innocence, becoming the relational figures of wives & sacrificial quality of ‘religious wounding’ suggests a relinquishing of autonomy & virginal femininity.
Whitsun weddings: Phallic image/extended metaphor:
- ’ Religious…’
- ‘There we were aimed….s…t b…s…arrow-shower…s b r.’
- ‘religious wounding’ : veiled reference to the act of sexual penetration - marriage portrayed as wholly destructive to the female, physically and psychologically as they relinquish child-like innocence & sacrificial quality of ‘religious wounding’ suggests a relinquishing of autonomy & virginal femininity.
- ‘There we were aimed….slowed…tightened brakes…swelled….…arrow-shower…somewhere becoming rain’: Links to Freud’s idea of ‘train dreams’ as expressions of sexual frustrations. SF of phallic imagery & sexual intimacy, essentially remarking that all marriages end in this act of physical domination of the female to fulfil social expectations of bearing children.
Alternatively the arrow metaphor may indicate how the lovers, blinded by this legalised union are blinded to the potential for failure encapsulated in the sense of straining to reach a certain goal/social expectation encapsulated in ‘aimed’ & the ‘arrow-shower/falling out-of-sight’ as there is a hugely unknown potential for this relationship, perhaps suggesting that marriages are not as perfect as portrayed as they can often end in divorce
AO3: Divorce is HUGELY TABOO
Whitsun weddings: train journey setting:
1. ‘s S’
2. ‘canals with f o i f/n & n…a o d c’
3. ‘cooling tower & s r u t b’
- ‘sunlit Saturday’: sibilance evokes a gentle, calming effect, creating a rather idyllic image of a train journey through the peaceful countryside.
- Destruction of the natural landscape by industrialisation:
‘canals with floatings of industrial froth….new and nondescript…acres of dismantled cars.’ Completely juxtaposes the natural beauty evident in Stanza 1 as the natural world is corrupted by industrial pollution. Yet this is glossed over with the euphonic construction of the lang.
‘acres..’ => vast expanse of industrial decay & the ignorance of the modern world to the plight of the working class. - ‘cooling tower & someone running up to bowl’: juxtaposing images reflect the blurring of the boundaries between the old industrial Br. (a metaphor/symbol for the working class) & the rather classy sport of cricket (symbol of the upper echelons of society as typically an upper-class sport).
Toads revisited: Humiliation of the WC
- ‘palsied o s….waxed-f o…’
- ‘characters i l c/d i t l b…’
- ‘All dodging…’
- SF of degeneration: ‘palsied old steptakers…‘waxed-fleshed outpatients’ : deteriorated physical state of these people, perhaps their degenerated state reflects Larkin’s view that the WC are a scourge on society. ‘Waxed-fleshed’ => mannequins, uncanny, falsified image of a person. AO3: Depiction of WC as a drain on the newly-created NHS.
- ‘characters in long coats/deep in the litter baskets’: Metafictional labelling of the homeless people as ‘characters’ dehumanises and depersonalises them as depicts them as just fictionalised ‘stock characters’, not fully realised human beings. Emphasises Larkin’s true disconnect from the WC and his adherence to classist views of the working class as ‘associated with certain vices’. Positioning of these characters ‘deep in the litter baskets’ literally places them by refuse, symbolising the downtrodden position of the WC.
- ‘All dodging the toad work/ by being stupid or weak.’: Use of all encompassing ‘all’ homogenises the WC as a sort of inferior race that deliberately causes their own suffering by electing to evade ‘hard work’ out of sheer laziness & social malaise.
Toads revisited: Pastoral setting quotes:
1. ‘Walking…s f b t w’
2. ‘the lake, the s, t g t l o/B p n’
3. ‘N a b p to b/Y i d s m’
- ‘Walking…should feel better than work’: use of modal verb to evoke an expectation for how things ‘should’ appear and behave thereby creating the sense that this harmonious image will be corrupted or subverted
- ‘the lake, the sunshine, the grass to lie on/ Blurred playground noises’: list of tranquil, beauteous settings build up this image of a peaceful, natural world which will eventually be upended. Synaesthesia of ‘blurred playground noises’ evocative of a sense of childlike wonder and awe of the world => later tainted by the passivity of the WC.
- ‘Not a bad place to be/Yet it doesn’t suit me’: rhyming couplet emphasises Larkin’s strict adherence to classist ideology as he attempts to distinctly separate himself from the WC, disgusted by the state of society in which he feels he is forced to bear the brunt of this ‘toad work’.
Toads Revisited: Larkin & speakers own love for work & distancing themselves from wc:
- ‘No, give me my intray/ M l h s’
- ‘Give me y a, o t; H m d C R’
- ‘No, give me my in-tray/My loaf haired secretary’: Possessive ‘my’ allows him to assume ultimate control over the female but also control over work => control provides him with a sense of security. Almost a sense of symbiosis established between the speaker & work, he is literally dependent on the wages work affords him for survival yet to the speaker, living is rather unimportant without having work to occupy one’s time.
- ‘Give me your arm, old toad; Help me down Cemetery Road.’: extension of this image of symbiosis/dependency on work as the speaker uses teh ‘toad’ (a metaphor for work) as a crutch. = work clearly provides the speaker w/ ultimate security and stability. Term of endearment ‘old toad’ = great respect for work & values his experience as at the end of life, symbolised by the metaphorical ‘Cemetery Road’, he can claim that he has lived his life with integrity - unlike the WC.
