Mr Bleaney - Philip Larkin

Mr Bleaney

Words from dictionary which are similar/homonyms – bleak; bleary; bleat; bleach(ed).

Poem about renting a bedsit
Poem with three characters
Poem about

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Philip Larkin – Mr Bleaney


II. ‘How we live measures our own nature’

How does the poem become autobiographical?


Key terms.


Projection/Identification
Assimilation
Self-fulfilling prophecy
How we are defined
The sadness of objects (as defined by our previous keywords).

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Objects/location set the tone: analyse this using the keywords.
What, initially is the narrator’s attitude towards the place? What do we know about the place? Is it disparaged? What other sad objects can you think of?
Why does he take the room?
What else contributes to the feeling of desperation here, apart from the sad objects?

Which areas in the poem can you identify as beginning this process of assimilation?
Which lines in the third stanza begin the process of projection/identification?
How does he know his habits (S4) Can he know this detail?
Who is the subject of S6?
S7 = self-fulfilling prophecy.

Definitions to help

Projection - A defense mechanism in which the individual attributes to other people impulses and traits that he himself has but cannot accept. It is especially likely to occur when the person lacks insight into his own impulses and traits."
"Attributing one's own undesirable traits to other people or agencies."
"The individual perceives in others the motive he denies having himself. Thus the cheat is sure that everyone else is dishonest."
"People attribute their own undesirable traits onto others."

Identification
Psychological process whereby the subject assimilates an aspect, property or attribute of the other and is transformed, wholly or partially, after the model the other provides.
you identify yourself with (characteristics of) an object. For instance: I identify myself with a characteristic of my father and transform myself to assimilate this characteristic in my personality. I become a little bit like him. This latter has been used by Freud to define the formation of a personality.

Assimilation
To incorporate and absorb into the mind.
To make similar; cause to resemble.
Self-fulfilling prophecy
A self-fulfilling prophecy is a prediction that directly or indirectly causes itself to become true.


As soon as he takes the room, he starts to become Bleaney.