Toads ☆

Question 1

‘Why should I let the toad work Squat on my life?’

Answer 1

• Extended metaphor of ‘toad’ : disgusted by concept of work and obligation. Enjambment emphasises ‘Squat’ : Work suffocates his identity, restrictive and oppressive nature.

Question 2

What are the main ideas in Toads?

Answer 2

1. Larkin criticises the restrictive and suffocating nature of working.
2. Those that don’t work presented as primitive and are judged.
3. Inner drive to work - though unfortunate, there is an inner/innate drive to work, beyond his control.

Question 3

‘Can’t I use my wit as a pitchfork and drive the brute off?’

Answer 3

‘Brute’ : Work is an aggressive form of social expectation and conformity. A03: ‘Wit’. Attended grammar school/Oxford (intelligence)

‘I’ - personal pronoun - their individuality and independence is oppressed by the need to conform to work.

Question 4

‘Six days of the week it soils with its sickening poison’

Answer 4

• Sibilance - damage from constantly working and overchallenging ourselves.
• Use of exclamative in ‘Just for paying a few bills!’ emphasises frustration at futile nature of working for necessity, not luxury.

Question 5

‘Lots of folk live up lanes
With fires in a bucket’

Answer 5

Those not working are uncivilised, inhumane, primitive.

Question 6

‘Their unspeakable wives are as skinny as whippets - and yet No one actually starves’

Answer 6

• Simile to describe those not working at all, attempting to explore the truth of its nature.
• Dehumanises and mocks those not working, although deems work to be restrictive force, judges those that don’t work as primitive and inferior.

Question 7

‘No one actually starves’

Answer 7

Parallels the ‘few bills’ as those not working appear to be surviving just as much as anyone else who is actually working.

Question 8

‘Stuff your pension!’

Answer 8

• Italics and exclamative mimics voice of society. He sacrifices more than he gains.

Question 9

‘But I know, all to well, that’s the stuff That dreams are made on’

Answer 9

• Volta demonstrates the 2 conflicting views exploring truth.
• Intertextual Reference to Shakespeare’s The Tempest - philosophical lines spoken by magician Prospero, who dreams of a utopian world. Speaker mocks notion of perfect society, where work doesn’t exist, is impossible/unrealistic/fictional.

Question 10

‘something efficiently toad-like Squats in me too; Its hunkers are heavy as hard as luck’

Answer 10

• Simile
• Refers to his inner drive to work - though unfortunate due to the monotony/routine - feels that he has an internal/innate need to work, beyond his control like luck. Nothing he can do about this - oppressive from within.

Question 11

‘The fame and the girl and the money’

Answer 11

• Polysynthetic Listing
• Mocks generic and superficial ambitions of society - consumerist, almost Americanised desires (A03)
  A03: Rejected prestigious position of Poet Laureate to be Chief Librarian at University of Hull, chose hard work and graft - his values within his identity.

Question 12

‘it’s hard to lose either when you have both’

Answer 12

• Understands work to be a necessary part of human existence to give our leisure/luxury meaning.

Question 13

Rhythm and Rhyme of Toads:

Answer 13

• Quatrains (4 line stanzas) represents a repetitive argument with himself.
• Visual rhyme - unfulfilment

Question 14

What 2 A03 points might be best used for Toads?

Answer 14

• Conservative
• 35 years working at University of Hull, rejecting prestigious position of Poet Laureate twice.