Reasons for Attendance Flashcards
- Good for Comparisons.
What is Reasons for Attendance about?
- Discusses the nature of conforming to societal expectations for happiness - speaker wants to exist as an individual outside of conformity, but hesitates.
‘The trumpet’s voice, loud and authoritative’
- Personification. Symbolic of societal expectations that are too dominant to ignore, hearing the voice of society.
‘the lighted glass’
‘-all under twenty five-‘
- Represents a barrier between him, and those inside.
- Parenthesis establishes distance of age and youthful conformity. Speaker is an outsider to those conforming.
‘Solemnly on the beat of happiness’
- Antithesis.
- Not genuinely happy, merely conforming to what’s expected.
- Tightly controlled and regulated joy - formality in movements.
‘sensing the smoke and sweat’
- Sibilance - the dancehall/their conformity appears to be this enticing, sensory experience that draws his attention.
‘Why be out here? But then, why be in there? Sex, yes, but what is sex?’
- Considers sex a means of expected social conformity. Criticises their conformity, and yet desires the same
- Desires individuality, but also wants to conform to his own sexual desires (conflicting mindset)
‘Of happiness is found my couples - sheer
Inaccuracy’
- Enjambment emphasises the inaccuracy - a turning point in the poem that their conformity is less appealing and does not bring them happiness. Better to pursue something individual to be happy.
‘What calls me is that lifted, rough-tongued bell (Art, if you like)’
- Speaker’s interests are deemed as existing outside of this realm of conformity, prefers more intellectual and individual forms of pleasure
‘whose individual sound Insists I too am individual’
‘It speaks; I hear’
- Enjambment - wants to be separate from others, and a non-conformist.
- Short monosyllables suggest this deep and direct connection between his Art, and himself.
‘With happiness. Therefor I stay outside,’
‘Believing this’ ‘Believing that’
- Believes his individuality will bring him happiness - perhaps understanding a slight exaggeration/ awareness that individualism is still a means of conforming.
- Maybe both understand feigning happiness (?)
‘If no one has misjudged himself. Or lied.’
- Caesura emphasises volta.
- Wonders whether deceived himself that can find happiness in solitude, no better than dancers/illusory desires. Perhaps both lie to convince themselves of happiness.
- End stop = emphatic ending.
‘they maul to and fro’
- Animalistic connotations - following their base desires, cheapens their behaviour. Such desires are primitive and undignified.
A03: What did Larkin quote about Jazz?
‘I can live a week without poetry, but not a day without jazz’
- Fan of jazz music, writing regular jazz reviews for The Daily Telegraph.
Structure of RfA:
- Quintains (5 line stanzas) + Regular Rhyme Scheme, with most of poem being in half-rhymes - order/societal expectations - conformity following structure.
