Do you find Larkins verse critical of ordinary people or does he champion their cause?

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Charlie Dowden

Do you find Larkin’s verse critical of ordinary people or does he champion their cause?

        Philip Larkin is a post war poet who was considered a man of the people who wrote ordinary poetry for ordinary people. He is very much an ordinary man himself as he worked as librarian as Hull; however in many of his poems he is often critical of the working class- his own kind- and sometimes views them as stupid and naive.

        

        Toads Revisited is typical of Larkin’s conflicting opinions of the working class. In the first stanza the speaker conveys a pleasant setting of “the lake, the sunshine, the grass to lie on” and says it is “not a bad place to be”; suggesting that he appears to be enjoying his walk around the park and being an ordinary working man. However there is a forewarning to this illusion that the speaker finds himself in with the conditional “should” and typical Larkin contrast comes with “yet it doesn’t suit me”. This represents the idea that the speaker is not satisfied with being out of work on an afternoon and thus shows that Larkin does not enjoy being one of the ordinary people. He paints a very negative picture of the men you find in a park at this time; “palsied old step-takers; waxed-flesh out-patients; characters in long coats” which conveys an idea of a group of poor, ill and troublesome people and a group that the speaker is keen to distance himself from. There is a sombre idea that all the work dodgers are somehow close to death. The speaker, portraying Larkin’s own views, is very harsh and judgmental saying they are all “stupid and weak” and  has a mocking tone when condemning them: “think of being them!” This portrays the idea that Larkin thinks he is above these people. There is a sense of time passing with “hearing the hours chime” representing the boredom the toads face on a daily basis. Whilst all this is very critical of these people; the second repetition of “think of being them” at the end of the sixth stanza suggests the persona is being more sympathetic. The criticism returns however with the constant repetition of “no” conveying a negative attitude. The speaker appears to be quite content with his own work however commenting “give me my in-tray”. This could be because of his “loaf haired secretary” whom the speaker appears to enjoy having power over a woman- a theme quite common in Larkin’s poems. He is often rather sexist and critical of the typical working class woman. The end of the poem is ambiguous but suggests that the speaker is not so dissimilar from the toads he is critical as “give me your arm, old toad; help me down Cemetery Road” conveys the idea that his work his helping him complete his journey of life.

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        Essential Beauty conveys a different style of criticism towards ordinary people; as in this poem Larkin views them as stupid and naive. Larkin has a negative attitude to the billboards which are “as large as rooms” so that they “block the ends of streets” and cover up reality with unachievable dreams. The billboards are described as glossy pictures portraying wealth, middle class and traditional “well-balanced families” with luxury items such as salmon, butter and OXO cubes. There is a sad irony that these billboards of essential beauty reflect “none of the rained-on streets and squares” were they are located ...

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