The ‘Whitsun Weddings’ contains many pessimistic poems, ‘Nothing to be said’ being one of the most opinionated poems in the collected works. The poem starts off by means of criticism.
“Cobble-close families”, “nuclear family”, these quotes create images of cramped terrace houses in the Northern urban industrialisation areas such as Manchester. Families seem very close and stick together more in these areas. Already we can see that Larkin has created a cynical view on things. Looking deeper into the poem shows Larkin’s individualisation. He shows in ‘Nothing to be said’, which is a subtle comment in itself that life is changing and people must think only of themselves.
“Measuring love and money”.
Larkin emphasises on life dying slowly through the language he uses. “Life is slow-dying” He uses the expression slow and not slowly to emphasise change in the community. This statement is supported by a quote later on in the poem,
“Hours giving evidence”, this quote gives the readers an appearance of the community fading every hour. The poem ends with an inadequate contradiction.
“Means nothing; others it leaves
Nothing to be said”.
The poem is almost left with a two-sided argument. Larkin against the community. Larkin’s side of the argument is shown through the “Nothing to be said” element, as he cannot stop the community fading whatever he says, consequently no matter what he say’s it means nothing. Larkin uses this as a way of preserving ways of the past. He doesn’t like contemporary life.
We can see this through an unambiguous link between poems. We can see a sense of Isolation in ‘Mr Bleaney’ and ‘nothing to be said’. This is shown by the breakdown of the community shown by the materialism and language used n the poem. ‘Mr Bleaney’ has a more introspective view but is also shown by becoming more isolated. Change is an apparent theme behind Larkin’s pessimistic poetry. He uses this a lot in his poetry. It is shown in ‘Mr Bleaney’ as a quick change however in ‘Nothing to be said’ it is a slow change. This demonstrates Larkin’s avoidance in order to create an observational biased argument rather than an opinion.
The second poem Larkin wrote in the ‘Whitsun Weddings’ collection is ‘Mr Bleaney’. 'Mr Bleaney' is the portrait of an invisible man; the story of a person who is not there. In fact, more than this, it tells us about the speaker by reflecting his characteristics in the imaginary mirror of the eponymous 'protagonist'. He captures an enigmatic view rather than a pessimistic view in this poem however it is typical of Larkin's method to avoid an unfiltered expression of emotion. Time and again, he uses an independent character as a kind of interface between writer and reader. The language employed reveals some clever touches. An enigmatic reference to "the Bodies", presumably a nickname for Mr Bleaney's former workplace, is somehow apt. Its slightly ghoulish ring corresponds to the notion of him as a spectre, silently hovering at the speaker's shoulder. Likewise when the room is referred to as "one hired box", sounding like nothing so much as a coffin. The "saucer-souvenir" doubling as an ashtray reinforces the idea of migration that both the speaker and his predecessor were just passing through.
And of course the poem's closing verses describe the fear that all our lives are no more than a 'passing through', furthermore, that our success, our happiness or otherwise in so doing are reflected by "how we live". Given this, the conclusion would seem to be that if all one has to show for oneself is a grubby rented room then one's life cannot have amounted to much. These are very negative comments Larkin makes which show pessimism in even his most pragmatic poems.
