Tom is reported missing here and Claudia is very worried and you could almost say that she does not really mind that this happens to someone she does not know. When it comes to Tom, the love of her life, it is unbelievable. Also, this section shows how we expect love to be endless and everlasting. But in reality this is not the total truth as people break up, willingly or unwillingly as in Claudia and Tom’s case. We can find that back in An Arundel Tomb:
“Our almost-instinct almost true: What will survive of us is love.”5
This is a very unusual way of writing for Philip Larkin as his poems are most of the times very pessimistic. This however, I believe, is irony. He is showing that it does not matter how close two people are and no matter how much they love each other, they can still be separated by history. When we are young we believe that love is all and love cannot end and this last sentence in his poem shows that this is all a lie and love does end.
In the section where Tom dies you can clearly see that the way of the writing of the story changes. It is very much in short sections which make the story sound much more exciting to read. It is all very unclear for the reader but at the same time it is very unclear for Claudia. She is clearly shocked when Tom dies. However, for Camilla, her roommate, life goes on. She soon starts having fun again, going to parties and living life:
“Eddie brought me back from the Moffat’s party.”6
Just like for us, the readers of war stories, death and other impersonal tragedies we soon get over the sadness as we reach the next chapter of the story.
“What happened there happens now only inside my head.”7
This is Claudia talking about her experience in Egypt. Even though the whole world was aware of the world all individuals have their own story. For everyone the First World War is a different story. It is private but at the same time very public as everyone experienced very similar losses. Claudia is definitely not the only woman that loses her lover, just as Philip Larkin points out:
“The thousands of marriages lasting a little while longer.”3
All these husbands and/or lovers are not just different individuals, but also mean something different to different people. We find out the general history by what’s written in history books but we can never know the private story of all of these women or children that have lost someone in their live. This again, closely relates to An Arundel Tomb which is inspired by a real tomb of two lovers, Richard Fitz Alan and his second wife Eleanor of Lancaster. Although they did not die at the same year they were still put together.
“One sees, with a sharp shock,
His hand withdrawn,
holding her hand.” 8
In that time, intimacy between couples was very private and taboo. The fact that people have put their hands together could mean that they loved each other very much. It could also be that the person that came up with that idea wants people to believe they loved each other. We will never know because this is private history. History can be changed into a lie but because it is called history we believe it.
Claudia loses Tom and his baby in the same chapter. During The First World War it was still very shameful to get pregnant from someone you were not married to. Even though it was something unacceptable at the time Claudia still wanted to keep the baby. The irony there though is the fact that she cannot decide for herself but that the sisters decide for her.
“Twas neither a girl nor a boy.”
and
“The best you can do is forget about it.”9
show how heartless the sisters are. This is obviously a big loss for Claudia and there is no support for her at the time.
“Claudia is really Mommy, but she does not like being Mummy so you have to say Claudia.”10
Claudia’s relationship with her daughter Lisa is very distant. Perhaps this is because her pregnancy was unexpected or because she did not love her father enough. Lisa could also bring back unwanted memories of Claudia’s ex. Lisa was in a way left aside by her mum and she never received motherly love. Philip Larkin refers to the relationships between parents and children.
“They fuck you up, your mum and dad”11
This is one of the most remembered lines of Philip Larkin’s poems. Philip Larkin could be ironically stating the words from the bible:
"For I the Lord, thy God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me"12
where parents are threatened for the sins against their children. Are they really ‘fucking up’ their children’s lives by disciplining them, how do we know what’s a good way of bringing up children?
However, with Claudia and Lisa it is a different story as Claudia had a choice. Even though at the time the story is set abortion is something sinful she could have chosen to have an abortion. It is a new life she is bringing into the world and if she cannot provide her with love and protection she should not have a baby. She still brought her into the world and yet she did not give her the love that she is expected to give by society. So Lisa is sort of ‘fucked up’ by her own mother. Would it have been different for Tom’s child if it had lived? Obviously she was in a different situation then. I would say yes, because she had never loved anyone else as much as Tom and especially because he died the baby would have been a second Tom for Claudia. The baby would have been someone to remember Tom by for Claudia.
“But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coat.”13
Philip Larkin is referring to how history keeps repeating itself. Parents give you a bad life, but they are not to blame really, because they have been given a bad life by their own parents. We see the same in Moon Tiger. Claudia’s relationship with her mother was not as great either just like Lisa’s relationship with her mother. It is history repeating itself over and over again, generation after generation.
Just like Penelope Lively, Philip Larkin believes that we have a choice of changing history. History can be repeating but does not have to be so necessarily.
“My hands on misery to man,
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don’t have any kids yourself.”14
So if you do not want to mess up your children’s live, then stop the repetitive history because you can. This is very contradicting to Lisa’s live. Lisa does get married to someone she loves, spends time with and that she provides love for. And she’ll probably have his kids but it’s all hidden for Claudia. She does not want her to get to know him at all because of their past.
“History is a course crammed with people like Mother, who are just sitting it out. It is the front liners who are the exceptions – those who find themselves thus placed whether they like it or not and those who seek involvement.”15
At some points in your life you can be history, you can decide what to do with your life. Not everyone is a part of history, not that of The First World War anyway according to Claudia. Her mother was just there and had nothing to do with history. The question here is whether Penelope thinks the same of Philip Larkin. In his poem MCMXIV we can clearly see that he writes about an aftermath of war, so he explains the result of war and not so the actualities of war. Will he therefore be a part of The First World War or is he just a poet that writes about war?
Both Penelope Lively and Philip Larkin do not seem to be very religious but both see religion in a different light.
“‘God,’ she says, ‘is an unprincipled bastard, wouldn’t you agree?’”16
And
“‘Oh I do,’ says Claudia. ‘Who else could bugger things up so effectively?’”17
This is something very uncommon to speak out at the time of when the story was set. Religion is still very important for many people and many would be offended by this. The nurses obviously shocked by these words try and change the subject. In Moon Tiger, Claudia believes that there is a God. But for her it is a God that ruins lives, causes wars and all the misery in the world:
“Once I am sure there’s nothing going on
I step inside, letting the door thud shut.”18
For Philip Larkin, however, religion is something from the past, they are history. Churches now are there to be looking at because of their beautiful architecture. And man only goes there when there’s nothing going on.
“Wondering what to look for; wondering, too,
When churches fall completely out of use
What we shall turn them into, if we shall keep…”19
So even though there are still many people that are religious, this is decreasing in the contemporary UK. According to him there will be one day that we will not need any churches anymore.
“Let him not be dead… ‘I believe n God the Father, God the Son, God the holy Ghost…’ Even that. All that. If you do Your part.”20
Philip Larkin’s poem says:
“Or, after dark, will dubious women come
To make their children touch a particular stone;
Pick simples for a cancer; or on some
Advised night see walking a dead one?”21
Penelope Lively might have referred to this stanza of Philip Larkin’s poem. We turn to god when we do not have answers to our problems. We turn to God only when we need Him. This could be saying that God really does not exist but that He is just an answer to hard times. That we seek in him our patience and our answers just to feel better. She always wondered whether he really existed and twice in her life she turned to him, both times she was in need of help. Both times nothing happened.
As said before, both writers have a quite similar opinion on history, relationships and religion. Penelope Lively refers to Philip Larkin’s poem a couple of times: “Forever young, forever Coupled.” And that show similar their views are. History for them is very personal and everyone has their own history. Everyone’s individual histories together form a world’s history as a whole. History keeps repeating itself time and time again and there is not much that we can do about that.
References:
1Moon Tiger, p. 1
2 MCMXIV, stanza 3
3 MCMXIV, stanza 4
4 Moon Tiger, p. 127
5 An Arundel Tomb, stanza 7
6 Moon Tiger, p. 128
7 Moon Tiger, p. 70
8 An Arundel Tomb, stanza 2
9 Moon Tiger, p. 132
10 Moon Tiger, p. 45
11 This Be the Verse, stanza 1
12 Old Testament, [Exodus 20:5]
13 This Be the Verse, stanza 2
14 This Be the Verse, stanza 3
15 Moon Tiger, p. 21
16 Moon Tiger, p. 54
17 Moon Tiger, p. 55
18 Church Going, stanza 1
19 Church Going, stanza 3
20 Moon Tiger, p. 58
21 Church Going, stanza 4
Word count : 1965
