Toads Flashcards
how does Larkin use rhyme in Toads to illustrate his messages?
- almost ABAB rhyme scheme
- somewhere between the monotony of work and the freedom of not working
analyse the title of Toads
extended metaphor where the toad imagery represents society’s obligation to work
analyse the quote ‘squat on my life’ from Toads
- figurative meaning suggests it doesn’t belong there, like squatters; it is an annoyance
- connotations of heaviness and indignity; working obligations are an unwanted burden but impossible to get rid of
- speaker is trapped by the requirement made by society; lack of freedom
analyse the quote ‘drive the brute off?’ from Toads
- 2 initial rhetorical questions shows speaker is critical of society and working life
- throws readers into the argument like society throws people into work
- shows the speaker’s confusion towards work obligations
analyse the quote ‘six days of the week it soils / with its sickening poison’ from Toads
- ‘six days’ = all consuming
- sibilance seems slow and dragging (like work) emphasising the speaker’s irritation
- ‘sickening’ shows disgust and anger; comic exaggeration may suggest it is an explosive outburst and is unreasonable
- ‘poison’ suggests it is bad for your health and will eventually kill you, presenting work as destructive and ruinous
analyse the quote ‘just for paying a few bills!’ from Toads
- ‘just’ minimises the use of work; speaker sees it as pointless and lacking value
- exclamative shows indignance; speaker feels work is not worth what he gets out of it - the benefits are disproportionate to the effort required and the pressure placed on him
analyse the quote ‘lots of folk’ from Toads
anaphora as the speaker separates himself from ‘these folk’ and sees himself as superior (he never even aligned himself with the movement)
analyse the quote ‘lecturers, lispers / losers, loblolly men, louts’ from Toads
- alliterative asyndetic listing groups them as a mass suggests they are all the same
- may suggest the speaker struggles to identify those who actually live like this; it is a random list held only by alliteration
analyse the quote ‘they don’t end up as paupers […] they seem to like it’ from Toads
- these are the people he should envy, but his envy is superficial with a deeper tone of disparagement
- he is desperate to find a solution to the toad, but is unconvinced
- the speaker is envious of those who don’t need to work (persona of jealousy) but also presents an image of these people as lazy, worthless and avoidant (true feelings)
analyse the quote ‘their unspeakable wives / are skinny as whippets’ from Toads
- speaker is trying to envy them, but struggles to disguise his disapproval; his endurance of the daily grind gives him moral superiority
- simile comparing them to animals is dehumanising; suggests they are violent/reliant on others
- speaker is critical of people who don’t work; their life is difficult and desperate, as much as the toad is
analyse the quote ‘but I know […] that’s the stuff / that dreams are made on’ from Toads
- volta here emphasises how larkin uses a dual mindset to explore different perceptions of work
- intertextual reference to the Tempest; lines are spoken by Prospero, a magician who dreams of a utopian society
- speaker knows a world without work is impossible/futile and realises the necessity of work/jobs
analyse the quote ‘for something sufficiently toad-like / squats in me, too’ from Toads
- speaker has the desire to work and feels he needs to live a sincere and honest life
- ‘in’ may suggest it is no longer weighing him down as the speaker has accepted the necessity of work; the drive to work is deep-rooted (‘in’) and speaker now embodies the working life
- ‘in’ may also suggest that the poison is now inside him, so though he wants to work, it can still be detrimental
analyse the quote ‘will never allow me to blarney’ from Toads
speaker does not want to live an insincere/ingenuine life; he wants to work hard and achieve
analyse the quote ‘the fame and the girl and the money’ from Toads
- superficial or universal desires?
- what is proposed as an object of envy is qualified by a fundamental disapproval
analyse the quote ‘I don’t say, one bodies the other / One’s spiritual truth; / but i do say it’s hard to lose either / when you have both’ from Toads
- ‘one’ is money/work and the ‘other’ is happiness/desires; speaker does not believe that work/money is essential to happiness, but living honestly is
- speaker’s genuine feelings/voice is clarified and he encourages hard work; if you’ve ‘blarnied’ your way to ‘fame’ etc and not through hard work, you will lose happiness, but if you work hard for it, you are less likely to lose it
- ‘when you have both’ whilst speaker is discontent with work, it allows him to enjoy the prospect of rebelling whilst having the security of work
- working and not working are not alternatives, but complimentary as whichever is chose, the rejected will still be desired (due to its freedom or security) and neither is more or less admirable
