havensaregna (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
havensaregna) wrote2012-01-15 10:07 pm
havensaregna) wrote2012-01-15 10:07 pm
Blog #1
Part 1:
In the first line of this poem, “They fuck you up, your mum and dad”, Larkin is addressing the universal you, implying that every parent fucks up their children. This line likely provokes some sort of emotional response with everyone whether they believe the merit of the statement or not, since we all have parents and have been affected by how they raised, or didn’t, raise us. The emotional response combined with the immediacy of the universal aspect in the poem shows that it contains at least a few aspects of great literature.
The reader is not sure whether it is meant to be taken seriously or not; with his nursery rhyme style of rhythm and use of simple language, it’s as though he is making fun of the topic. Then the last stanza becomes serious and reads like a pessimistic warning, that the only way to not fuck up our children is to not have any. Concurrently it is this contrast between seriousness and levity in the poem that makes it intriguing. However, Larkin does not go very deep in to the intense theme of man perpetuating a cycle of misery beyond a face value idea that we can all simply blame our parents. Also, intimating that everyone is fucked up is a very strong and incisive statement and leads me to feel that the message in his poem reads more like a limited opinion than a universal truth. I would not classify this particular poem as “great literature” if only by how straightforward it is; there are not too many ways in which it can be interpreted, but can only vary slightly according to who the reader is.
Part 2:
In “Evaline”, even after the mother has passed away Evaline’s decisions are still heavily weighted by a promise she made to her mother to keep the home together, conflicting with the desire to escape the pitiful vision of what her mother’s life had been. This deepens the theme of Larkin’s poem in that it shows the inescapable effect of passing down baggage onto our children however unintended.
In the end it seems that she is not able to break free from the conditioning of her parents in order to seek a life that is truly her own. By giving up her own dreams to fulfill the promise to her mother Eveline may feel it her future child’s duty to do the same, and perhaps her only chance at avoiding that fate would be to heed the warning in Larkin’s poem and not have any kids herself.
In the first line of this poem, “They fuck you up, your mum and dad”, Larkin is addressing the universal you, implying that every parent fucks up their children. This line likely provokes some sort of emotional response with everyone whether they believe the merit of the statement or not, since we all have parents and have been affected by how they raised, or didn’t, raise us. The emotional response combined with the immediacy of the universal aspect in the poem shows that it contains at least a few aspects of great literature.
The reader is not sure whether it is meant to be taken seriously or not; with his nursery rhyme style of rhythm and use of simple language, it’s as though he is making fun of the topic. Then the last stanza becomes serious and reads like a pessimistic warning, that the only way to not fuck up our children is to not have any. Concurrently it is this contrast between seriousness and levity in the poem that makes it intriguing. However, Larkin does not go very deep in to the intense theme of man perpetuating a cycle of misery beyond a face value idea that we can all simply blame our parents. Also, intimating that everyone is fucked up is a very strong and incisive statement and leads me to feel that the message in his poem reads more like a limited opinion than a universal truth. I would not classify this particular poem as “great literature” if only by how straightforward it is; there are not too many ways in which it can be interpreted, but can only vary slightly according to who the reader is.
Part 2:
In “Evaline”, even after the mother has passed away Evaline’s decisions are still heavily weighted by a promise she made to her mother to keep the home together, conflicting with the desire to escape the pitiful vision of what her mother’s life had been. This deepens the theme of Larkin’s poem in that it shows the inescapable effect of passing down baggage onto our children however unintended.
In the end it seems that she is not able to break free from the conditioning of her parents in order to seek a life that is truly her own. By giving up her own dreams to fulfill the promise to her mother Eveline may feel it her future child’s duty to do the same, and perhaps her only chance at avoiding that fate would be to heed the warning in Larkin’s poem and not have any kids herself.