The Whitsun Weddings - Philip Larkin.

Kelly Hanson DS 11

The Whitsun Weddings – Philip Larkin

19. Larkin wrote: “I like to read about people who aren’t beautiful or lucky, presented with a realistic firmness and humour”.

How far do you feel that The Whitsun Weddings presents people like this?

I have decided to use the following poems for this essay: - Sunny Prestatyn, Toads Revisited, MCMXIV, Take One Home For The Kiddies and The Study Of Reading Habits.

The Whitsun Weddings by Philip Larkin does present people who aren’t beautiful or lucky, presented with a real firmness and humour. However I believe that it is not shown in the whole of the collection. Sunny Prestatyn is a poem about a poster, which is advertising a seaside resort. The first image is the 'girl' advertising 'Sunny Prestatyn': an icon of femininity and of the beautiful life. The 'girl' has been systematically ruined by vandalism. This poem shows how beauty can be manipulated and made into a joke by some people. This was done by the graffiti and the sexual images, ‘Huge tits…tuberous cock and balls’, which were drawn on the poster. Beauty in this poem is described as what men find physically attractive about women. 'She was too good for this life' (149) this shows that although the vandals had a laugh when they were drawing over the poster that other people found the poster beautiful and it was destroyed meaning that it was no longer the beautiful image it once was. I think that Sunny Prestatyn is not only a poem about someone/thing that is no longer beautiful but also contains a sense of realistic firmness, posters are vandalised and ruined in the streets and that is what has happened here. Also this poem has a sense of realism as the replacement poster is called ‘fight cancer’. Larkin, I think, chose to end the poem with the line ‘Now Fight Cancer is there’ as it shows the total extremes between a good life which is what the Sunny Prestatyn poster was all about. Humour in Sunny Prestatyn is shown by a smirk, which is written all over the face of the poem. 'She was too good for this life'. We can almost hear the unspoken excuses, “Of how she had asked for it”. The apparent compliment hides a sharp joke and an easy irony: she was advertising the good life, but she was 'too good for this life'. I do not believe that this particular poem portrays anyone who is lucky, but it can be said that the ‘girl’ on the poster is lucky in the sense that she has been chosen to advertise on posters. Toads Revisited is a sequel poem to toads in ‘The Less Deceived’ a collection of Larkin’s earlier works. This poem is about realism and how work dominates lives. The word toad is used as an extended metaphor for Larkin’s view of work and also portrays a lack of beauty. The word ‘toad’ is ugly, threatening and a ponderous static word. The poem itself is not actually about toads it is about a person sat in a park-envying people about their lives and the way they spend their time. The poem shows a real lack of beauty and does show luck, but not in the sense that someone is lucky. Luck is shown without realising it, the person envying people, has a job and probably a place to live, whereas the ‘…characters in long coats deep in the litter-baskets-….’ Are probably homeless and aren’t as fortunate as the on looker. This poem does not in my mind contain any element, which could be classed as humour as it is quite, I think, a depressing poem, which focuses mainly on the lack of beauty and realism.

MCMXIV is a poem from after World War I. This poem is about the innocence that is lost by the generation that fought in World War One. It does show beauty, but not physical beauty. The beauty is shown through the innocence of ‘the crowns of hats, the sun…. grinning as if it were all an August Bank Holiday’. It was our first war and people were very naïve about it. The poem shows in a realistic tone the beauty of innocence and luck.

Take One Home For The Kiddies is a poem about a pet being brought for ...

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Take One Home For The Kiddies is a poem about a pet being brought for a child and goes on to describe when the pet dies. The innocence of the child in this poem is beautiful. The poem also shows a realistic firmness, as the child is probably too young to understand what is going on. However this poem is not just about the child, as it is also about the pet. The first three lines tell us about the deprivation these animals suffer at the hands of the pet shop owners. If animals are treated so badly by adults, then how can we expect children to behave any better? ‘Living toys are something novel..’ Larkin's not just criticising the people who sell pets or the kids who keep them but the parents who buy them for kids who are too young and do not supervise care of pet.

The Study Of Reading Habits is a poem about the lost love of reading. The poem does have a sense of realism and shows a lack of beauty. The lack of beauty is shown through the person’s naivety due to being ‘cool’. In the end the person who ruined their eyes due to their love of books finishes by saying ‘Books are a load of crap’. I think that this shows how some people feel they will be treated for their specific hobby. This poem therefore shows the lack of beauty people can go through and also the realism of which people go through regarding their lifestyle. I do not think that this poem has any sense of luck as the ‘man’ describes himself as a bit of a Jekyll and Hyde character.

I think that Philip Larkin’s presentation of his poems regarding humour and realistic firmness is not shown in every poem from The Whitsun Weddings collection, most of his poems do contain an element of realism, however, humour does not usually appear in his poems. Generally Philip Larkin’s poems do contain, or are about, people who aren’t beautiful or once were. I do agree to an extent that Larkin’s poems present people in his poems as unlucky and not beautiful and usually with a realistic firmness, however regarding humour I am not sure, as only a few of his poems do.