My transformation of Philip Larkin's first-person adult poem, 'Mr Bleaney' into a third and first person short story for a similar audience.

Elaine Briggs

Text Transformation: Commentary

My transformation of Philip Larkin’s first-person adult poem, ‘Mr Bleaney’ into a third and first person short story for a similar audience was both rewarding and challenging. Being appreciative of Larkin’s work prior to this exercise, I selected the aforementioned piece and ‘Here’ from a collection of poetry. I made the choice to transform these texts as they to relate to one another in cultural context; namely the working class in the post war period. I was also intrigued by how brightly Larkin’s personal view shone through, as ‘Mr Bleaney’ and ‘Here’, like a lot of his other work portrays a Spartan view of the working class, for example ‘raw estates’. To magnify this, I have named the narrator in the latter part of my piece Philip Smith (a relatively non-descript surname, which makes a link to Mr Bleaney’s non-descript life, and the poet’s forename which makes a link between his and my narrator’s values). I found the base text to be quite restrictive in terms of the characters’ views and was therefore eager to develop Mr Bleaney, and offer an insight into whether he enjoyed living such a life or not and why the narrator was so fervent in criticising him.

While keeping in line with the poem’s purpose to entertain, I accentuated this through humour, sarcasm and irony, for instance;

‘Touring my new haven of outdated furnishing and the constant jabbering

of a distant television set took no time or effort whatsoever’

‘The new manager forty years his junior led him into a grey office similar

in its size and contour to the boxes he had made for over four decades’

When I read the poem I was captivated by the absence of Mr Bleaney’s voice. I have imitated this to emphasise his emptiness and invisibility. I also continued to address him as Mr Bleaney, his absence of forename implies that nobody knew him on a first name basis. I considered revealing his true character as a ‘secret agent’, him living somewhat of a double life. However this seemed too romanticised and too far removed from the original text, thus I developed the characters, revealing the poet’s view and answering the narrator’s question at the end of the poem ‘I don’t know’. This ambiguous ending spurred me to create Mr Bleaney as a fuller character and to develop Philip Smith’s views towards the old man, that is, he criticised him because he couldn’t accept how he could identify with his loneliness, ‘Like me Mr Bleaney also gambled’.

Although the poem’s plot is fairly uneventful, I enjoyed revealing what happened in Mr Bleaney’s life and why he no longer lived in the bed-sit, ‘till they moved him’. The chronology was interesting, as one immediately thought of the narrator as being Mr Bleaney’s successor. The penultimate stanza resurrects Mr Bleaney, which inspired me to revive Mr Bleaney in my penultimate paragraph, ‘I was Mr Bleaney…I could hear Mr Bleaney laughing’.

I chose to transform the poem into a short story as it allowed development of the characters and setting by using descriptive language, for instance;

‘He stared ...

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I chose to transform the poem into a short story as it allowed development of the characters and setting by using descriptive language, for instance;

‘He stared at the brownish wallpaper, hypnotised by the marks of damp and

neglect that sometimes appeared to him like magical worlds’

This enabled me to portray the bed-sit as being dilapidated, which symbolises Mr Bleaney’s appearance, as well as making his state of mind apparent to the reader. This also contrasts with Larkin’s use of noun phrases which are barren. I have mimicked this monosyllabic technique in my piece, making a link to Larkin’s writing style as well as emphasising Mr Bleaney’s monotonous life.

‘A dog. A child’s bicycle.’

‘Fold, assemble, fold, assemble. Cardboard box upon cardboard box’

I decided against writing a conventional short story as two points of view would allow the further development of the poem, providing the reader with the truth about Mr Bleaney’s monotonous life;

Ringless fingers that declared to an uninterested world that he was alone,

dropped onto the brass door handle, which took him into a happy, mocking

world’

I edited the lines “Mr Bleaney took my bit of garden properly in hand” and “The jabbering set he egged her on to buy” as they contradict the unsociable character I have developed, as in my story he only says a handful of monosyllabic words, ‘yes, well’.

I have used direct and indirect extracts from ‘Mr Bleaney’ and ‘Here’ to make obvious and subtle links to the poems. The following examples show the state of mind of Philip Smith in comparison with the narrator in ‘Mr Bleaney’, and further reveals the setting to the reader.

‘The ill fitting flowered curtains, thin and frayed, danced sadly in the wind’

‘I hate this raw estate with its clustered, crowded streets and its flat-faced trolleys continuously buzzing by’

I created characters which contrast Mr Bleaney’s taciturn, namely Mrs Valentine, whose name symbolises love and cliché which is a direct contrast with his bleak name, ‘Mr Bleakly’. She wears colourful clothes and make-up and annoys Philip Smith and Mr Bleaney, for example, ‘quacked his landlady’ and ‘the large, bustling woman continued to quack on about a Mr Bleaney’. I also introduced nameless characters to further contrast Mr Bleaney’s silence, for example;

‘Giggling married couples…chuckling pensioners passed him, ignored him

and continued to laugh’

“Very exotic! He gets around a bit don’t he!”

I have used dialect and colloquialism to convey character, making their social class evident to the reader. In my course I have learnt the importance of using dialect and sophisticated language together to create literary realism. Larkin uses this technique, for example, ‘fags’ and ‘the frigid wind tousling the clouds’. I have mimicked this poetic yet realistic style in my piece, ‘an unusually over-sized blob of brown sauce’ and ‘His wrinkled, grey expression remained inert and morose’.

I intended to convey a sympathetic attitude towards Mr Bleaney and Philip Smith, through the circumstances they share. However I want the reader to feel that the two men deserve their loneliness as they chose to live such a life and did nothing to change, ‘She took my kids away from me and my ‘dangerous’ addiction’. Moreover, I have emphasised Larkin’s Spartan beliefs through the way I have conveyed women and the working class, for example, Mrs Valentine is only included when cooking Mr Bleaney’s meals. ‘This meant that today ringed fingers and hurried feet brought Mr Bleaney three boiled potatoes’ and ‘That didn’t justify the tramp divorcing me…respectable men don’t let their wives take control’.

The central theme in my piece is loneliness and this is conveyed through the language I have used. Lexis such as, ‘Nothing. Nothing whatsoever. Nothingness’ and ‘With nothing, nothing whatsoever written down’ compare their impact on life and writing. I have, as written in the base text, portrayed the bed-sit as being empty, uncomfortable and gloomy. I have also conveyed the characters themselves as being empty, for example, ‘filled him with nostalgia’. I have included death as a sub-theme, for example, ‘upright chair similar to its electric variety’ and ‘This was my Hell’. I have conveyed time as a sub-theme. Language such as ‘Time progressed, years, decades’ and ‘the slow tick of Mr Bleaney’s old clock. A slow, deliberate sound’ shows time to be more progressive than and mocking to, their lives. I have used a feature of graphology, caesura, to illustrate the passing of time or a vital change of theme in my piece, for example, when Mr Bleaney looks out of the window when he realises his mistakes.

I made linguistic choices which were both descriptive and non-descript when I needed to portray the setting and monotony of their lives. For the majority of my piece I have used formal language to aid my portrayal of the characters’ routine lives. However, when including dialogue I have used dialect and slang to portray the Northern characters as being ignorant, as well as making a talkative contrast to his lackluster nature. On the other hand, to reveal Mr Bleaney’s life as routine and to make connections to the base text, I have used sparse, poem-like language. Devices such as tripling and repetition, ‘Chat, chat, chat, gloat, gloat, gloat’, help to create his distanced, mechanical approach to life. This irregular syntax juxtaposes with the formal sentence structure I have used throughout. Phonological features such as sibilance, ‘sharp shoes and cheap suits’, a direct extract from ‘Here’, creates a sense of dislike towards the working class gambler, further emphasising Larkin’s views. I have used assonance to create soft-sounding prose, ‘The serene wind was moving the clouds around the empty sky like the tender caress of a gentle lover’. This sentence is far more poetic than the majority of my piece, thus placing emphasis on Mr Bleaney’s epiphany. I have used a lot of figurative language in my piece, such as metaphor, simile, personification and oxymoron to communicate the extremity of the tedious lives they live and perhaps reveals their hidden madness;

‘small pink paper slips…floated to the floor like sacrilegious autumn leaves’

‘Sinking deeper into depression and drowning in self-pity, memories of my children and my former contented self flooded my thoughts’

‘Mouths chuckled and eyes widened as she continued talking. However Mr Bleaney’s had become teary and remained on his work as people laughed at his life’

‘Ringless fingers that declared to an uninterested world that he was alone, dropped onto the brass door handle, which took him into a happy, mocking world’

In conclusion the overall style and structure of my piece has remained faithful to Larkin’s style and ideas. On the other hand, I have used a prose based, structured style with more complex characters, plot and language.