No Road, Arrivals, Departures and Next, Please

Question 1

Always too eager for the futuure, we/Pick up bad _________ of expectancy’ (Next, Please)

Answer 1

habits

Question 2

Always too eager for the futuure, we/Pick up bad habits of _____________’ (Next, Please)

Answer 2

expectancy

Question 3

the tiny, clear ______________ armada of promises draw near’ (Next, Please)

Answer 3

sparkling

Question 4

What is the main technique used in Next, Please?

Answer 4

extended metaphor

Question 5

In Next, Please, how does Larkin mock the attitude of society?

Answer 5

By using a voice that is childishly impatient and excitable - via the exclamations:

Question 6

How slow they are! And how much time they waste/Refusing to make haste!//’Yet still they leave us holding wretched __________’ (Next, Please)

Answer 6

stalks

Question 7

What technique is used in the phrase ‘they leave us holding wretched stalks’ from Next, Please?

Answer 7

Metaphor. This connotes the idea of how we are left clinging on to dead dreams.

Question 8

What is bathos?

Answer 8

Bathos - an abrupt change in tone, normally used to create comedy.

Question 9

In which poem is bathos used?

Answer 9

Next Please

Question 10

How is bathos used in Next, Please?

Answer 10

The ship is initially described as majestic with ‘brasswork prinked and ‘each rope distinct’. However, the language then dramatically shifts as Larkin refers to the ‘golden tits’ of the ship’s figurehead.

Question 11

Why is Next, Please structured in rhyming couplets?

Answer 11

Larkin is trying to create and upbeat, child-like tone to represent society’s naivety and immaturity.

Question 12

Why is there an end stop in the penultimate stanza of Next, Please: ‘For waiting so devoutly and so long.// But we are wrong’

Answer 12

To separate the foolish illusions of society from the reality. This serves as a volta in the poem.

Question 13

What is significant about the language here? ‘But we are wrong’ (Next, Please)

Answer 13

It’s monosyllabic - represents the blunt and unavoidable truth.

Question 14

In Next, Please what is the ‘one ship [that] ‘is seeking us’?

Answer 14

death

Question 15

How is colour imagery used here: ‘black sailed unfamiliar’ (Next, Please)

Answer 15

The colour black represents death - a contrast to the ‘golden tits’ of how we falsely view life.

Question 16

In Next, Please, why is the ‘black sailed’ ship described as being ‘unfamiliar’?

Answer 16

Because Larkin is suggesting that we don’t think or truly accept death - this idea is also shown in the poem Wants - ‘ the costly aversion of the eyes away from death’.

Question 17

A huge and ___________ silence’ (Next, Please)

Answer 17

birdless

Question 18

In Next, Please, why does the ‘black sailed unfamiliar’ (that represents death) leave behind ‘a huge and birdless silence’?

Answer 18

Larkin is suggesting that after death there is nothing; death is an absolute end to all life.

Question 19

A huge and birdless _________’ (Next, Please)

Answer 19

silence

Question 20

Arrivals, Departures uses the image of a travelling salesman arriving on the ‘morning shore’ to represent the difficulty of c_____________

Answer 20

choice

Question 21

In Arrivals, Departures, the image of a boat arriving on the ‘morning shore’ was likely influenced by….?

Answer 21

Larkin living in Belfast at the time, and regularly making the journey back to England on a ‘channel boat’.

Question 22

in Arrivals, Departures, the boat comes ‘sidling’ into harbour, arriving in a quiet, almost secretive, manner - why?

Answer 22

To represent how we are often unaware of the choices that we face, until it is too late.

Question 23

‘His advent ___________ to the morning shore’ (Arrivals, Departures)

Answer 23

blurted

Question 24

In Arrivals, Departures, what does the word ‘blurted’ mean?

Answer 24

blurted means to speak loudly and without thinking.

Question 25

In Arrivals, Departures, the travelling salesman arrives in a loud and somewhat clumsy fashion - why?

Answer 25

To represent how we are often distracted by noise and other unimportant diversions when we make choices.

Question 26

‘we barely recalled from __________’ (Arrivals, Departures)

Answer 26

sleep

Question 27

In Arrivals, Departures, Larkin refers to the ‘doleful distance’ - what does ‘doleful’ mean?

Answer 27

causing sadness/grief

Question 28

In Arrivals, Departures, why does Larkin refer to the ‘doleful distance’?

Answer 28

‘doleful’ means to cause sadness/greif; the speaker thinks that the choices we make will - in the ‘distance’ of the future - make us feel a sense of pain and regret.

Question 29

‘Come and choose __________, they cry, come and choose ________’ (Arrivals, Departures)

Answer 29

wrong

Question 30

In Arrivals, Departures, who or what does Larkin imagine saying - ‘come and choose wrong’?

Answer 30

Larkin personifies the ‘dilemmas’ (stanza 2) as seductive and tempting, drawing us in to making the wrong decision.

Question 31

‘Calling the traveller now, the _____________ bound’ (Arrivals, Departures)

Answer 31

outward

Question 32

In Arrivals, Departures, what is the significance of the boat that arrived on the ‘morning shore’ (stanza 1) turning into the ‘outward bound’ (stanza 3)

Answer 32

It represents how the opportunities, once new and within reach, are now disappearing.

Question 33

In Arrivals, Departures, the poem begins in the ‘morning’, representing new opportunities and a fresh start. However, by the end of the poem, it has become ‘night’ - why?

Answer 33

To represent how these new opportunities have disappeared and been replaced by uncertainty and darkness.

Question 34

In Arrivals, Departures, Larkin rhymes the three final lines of the poem - ‘knowing’/’blowing’/’going’ - why?

Answer 34

This is intended to quicken the tempo of the final lines, representing the fast disappearing sense of choice.

Question 35

What is the significance of the clipped title - ‘Arrivals, Departures’?

Answer 35

It represents how quickly the choices that ‘arrive’ in our life end up ‘departing’ again.

Question 36

What is the main technique employed by Larkin in No Road?

Answer 36

Extended metaphor

Question 37

In No Road, what is significant about Larkin’s use of a line break to split the opening sentence - ‘let the road between us/fall to disuse.

Answer 37

The line break acts as a representation of the new separation between the speaker and the unnamed character.

Question 38

No Road was written in 1951, soon after Larkin had called off his engagement to…

Answer 38

Ruth Bowman

Question 39

The end of which relationship is thought to have shaped the poem No Road?

Answer 39

The end of Larkin’s brief engagement to Ruth Bowman.

Question 40

‘time’s __________ agents loose’ (No Road)

Answer 40

eroding

Question 41

In No Road, why does Larkin refer to ‘time’s eroding agents’?

Answer 41

Time is presented as a slow, but inevitable, force of change. Whereas the couple in the poem struggle to separate and move on, time is presented as an undeniable force that will cause the break.

Question 42

In the final stanza of No Road, how and why is there a shift in the pronoun usage?

Answer 42

The plural ‘us’ from the first stanza is replaced by the singular forms ‘I’ and ‘you’. This conveys the increasing sense of separation towards the end of the poem.

Question 43

‘To watch that world come up like a cold _________’ (No Road)

Answer 43

sun

Question 44

In No Road, why does the narrator compare a life without his partner to watching a ‘world come up like a cold sun’

Answer 44

To present how such an existence would be unnatural and lifeless.

Question 45

At the end of No Road, the syntax becomes muddled and confusing to represent the speaker’s guilt and anxiety. He ultimately has to accept that is ‘ailment’ is that…?

Answer 45

He prefers a simple life of solitude to the complexity and compromise of being with another.