Self’s the Man

We’ve seen in ‘Toads’ Larkin questioning attitudes to work; his technique is to set up an antagonistic portrait (in Toads of the jobless) and then compare his own situation. He normally concludes that he is different but just as bad.

Larkin ‘playing his own game’ – Larkin knows what he likes. ‘We all live in our own private hell’.

Working Class details.

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Are you going to get married when you’re older? What will be your reasons for marrying? What do you imagine your domestic, everyday life will entail? What concessions will you have to make.

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In what other poems are the working class and their details discussed?

Look at a selection of the vocabulary from this poem:

Perk – little advantage or bonus
Clobber – (slang);stuff; clothing.
Drier; abr. Tumble Drier
Supper;dinner.
‘Have a read’; colloquial phrase; sim. ‘have a think’; have a lie down’; have a brew’.
Nippers – children


These are working class attitudes and their objects under examination, like he feels a grim thrill in description. This is a poetry of the everyday, a domestic portrait. Everyday characters doing everyday things, which Larkin despises and sets himself apart from, but which in the end he cannot help but see himself as just as bad as.

Domestic portraits with sad objects – the working class again. Remember he said:

"I want to see them starving,/The so-called working class,/Their wages yearly halving,/Their women stewing grass..."

What does this quote suggest about L’s attitude to the working class. Is this view supported by this poem?


Again an autobiographical element.


Is it more selfish to get married or not get married? Is it even worth thinking about marriage in these terms? How could not marrying be seen as selfish?


QUESTIONS

Why did Arnold marry in the first place?

What’s the relationship like, between Arnold and his wife?

What details do you learn of Arnold’s domestic existence? Is it a happy life, in Larkin’s imagining?

Does Larkin disparage these details? B

‘To compare his life and mine
Makes me feel like a swine’.

Is Larkin saying his life is better or worse? What does he not want to deal with? What do we know of his life from the poetry?

At what point does the poem become a refection? What is the conclusion to this reflection?

How ultimately does L conclude that he and Arnold are the same? Is this a fair view of men and their motivations?

How ultimately does L conclude that he and Arnold are different?

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Fill in your table with details as the where opinions expressed in this poem agree with our themes.