Afternoons - Language, Structure, Context

Question 1

Philip Larkin

Answer 1

Refused Poet Laureate
Father was a city treasurer
Troubled by his parents marriage - negative views of domesticity as a result of childhood, therefore his poetry often focused on ordinary, everyday life
Frequently wrote letters to Monica and his mum.
Was a successful librarian
Never married or had children himself

Question 2

Ruth Bothman

Answer 2

First girlfriend - fears of marriage led to them drifting apart

Question 3

Criticising Domestic life

Answer 3

Life may be ‘easier’ but not as fulfilling

Question 4

Structure

Answer 4

No obvious meter
No obvious rhyme
Regular Stanza length - shows their attempt to maintain control over their own lives
OR
Mimics the repetitive cycle of life
The predictability and mundanity of the mother’s lives

Question 5

Rhyme

Answer 5

Lack of rhyme scheme creates a sense of disjointedness and mismatch.
This is similar to the lives of the mothers

Question 6

Stanza length

Answer 6

3, 8-line, stanzas

Question 7

Stanza 1

Answer 7

Reflects on the passing of time with the end of summer. He describes young mothers taking their children to the park.

Question 8

Stanza 2

Answer 8

We see into the lives of the mothers.
Larkin implies they are isolated from their husbands and that their lives lack romance and excitement

Question 9

Stanza 3

Answer 9

Poetic voice focuses on the children and how they take up their mothers’ focus.
This means the women are disinterested onlookers of their own lives.

Question 10

1940-43

Answer 10

Studied English at St. John’s College, Oxford

Question 11

The North Ship

Answer 11

1945

Question 12

Context and Meaning

Answer 12

Afternoons is about both the passing of time and loss of identity as a mother
The poem implies that motherhood is isolating and mundane, and that women feel unsupported by their husbands.
Children, on the other hand, seem to have freedom and enjoys their lives.
The poem implies that marriage and parenthood are the end of romance, and that romance if for the younger generation instead.

Question 13

Images of decay

Answer 13

Describes the light ‘fading’
‘The leaves fall in ones and twos’
Implies a really gradual decline and implies that times passes gradually without even being noticed.
This perhaps suggests that the mothers find themselves in these situations unexpectedly, as if life has crept up on them

Question 14

Juxtaposition

Answer 14

Contrast between the wedding album and the television
Implies that even something so romantic and special can become ordinary and mundane, cast aside
‘Lying’ implies a carelessness about marriage - the wedding album has been discarded like an object

Question 15

Symbolism

Answer 15

‘Unripe acorns’
‘Unripe’ - implies naivety and future potential
They have their lives ahead of them in which to mature
‘Acorns’ - they are seeds and full of potential, they are destined to grow
This contrasts to the mothers who are stifled by an estateful of washing