‘Why should I let the toad work Squat on my life?’
- Extended metaphor of ‘toad’ : disgusted by concept of work and obligation. Enjambment emphasises ‘Squat’ : Work suffocates his identity, restrictive and oppressive nature.
What are the main ideas in Toads?
- Larkin criticises the restrictive and suffocating nature of working.
- Those that don’t work presented as primitive and are judged.
- Inner drive to work - though unfortunate, there is an inner/innate drive to work, beyond his control.
‘Can’t I use my wit as a pitchfork and drive the brute off?’
‘Brute’ : Work is an aggressive form of social expectation and conformity. A03: ‘Wit’. Attended grammar school/Oxford (intelligence)
‘I’ - personal pronoun - their individuality and independence is oppressed by the need to conform to work.
‘Six days of the week it soils with its sickening poison’
- Sibilance - damage from constantly working and overchallenging ourselves.
- Use of exclamative in ‘Just for paying a few bills!’ emphasises frustration at futile nature of working for necessity, not luxury.
‘Lots of folk live up lanes
With fires in a bucket’
Those not working are uncivilised, inhumane, primitive.
‘Their unspeakable wives are as skinny as whippets - and yet No one actually starves’
- Simile to describe those not working at all, attempting to explore the truth of its nature.
- Dehumanises and mocks those not working, although deems work to be restrictive force, judges those that don’t work as primitive and inferior.
‘No one actually starves’
Parallels the ‘few bills’ as those not working appear to be surviving just as much as anyone else who is actually working.
‘Stuff your pension!’
- Italics and exclamative mimics voice of society. He sacrifices more than he gains.
‘But I know, all to well, that’s the stuff That dreams are made on’
- Volta demonstrates the 2 conflicting views exploring truth.
- Intertextual Reference to Shakespeare’s The Tempest - philosophical lines spoken by magician Prospero, who dreams of a utopian world. Speaker mocks notion of perfect society, where work doesn’t exist, is impossible/unrealistic/fictional.
‘something efficiently toad-like Squats in me too; Its hunkers are heavy as hard as luck’
- Simile
- Refers to his inner drive to work - though unfortunate due to the monotony/routine - feels that he has an internal/innate need to work, beyond his control like luck. Nothing he can do about this - oppressive from within.
‘The fame and the girl and the money’
- Polysynthetic Listing
- Mocks generic and superficial ambitions of society - consumerist, almost Americanised desires (A03)
A03: Rejected prestigious position of Poet Laureate to be Chief Librarian at University of Hull, chose hard work and graft - his values within his identity.
‘it’s hard to lose either when you have both’
- Understands work to be a necessary part of human existence to give our leisure/luxury meaning.
Rhythm and Rhyme of Toads:
- Quatrains (4 line stanzas) represents a repetitive argument with himself.
- Visual rhyme - unfulfilment
What 2 A03 points might be best used for Toads?
- Conservative
- 35 years working at University of Hull, rejecting prestigious position of Poet Laureate twice.
