Larkin and Duffy- Failure, disappointment, suffering

Failure, disappointment, suffering

Larkin:Selfs the man, Ambulances Duffy:Adultery, Disgrace 

thesis

both- human failure and suffering, showing how individuals confront disappointment, loss, and mortality.

Larkin presents it with detachment and irony, often reflecting societal constraint

Duffy emphasizes emotional intensity and personal consequence.

p1 Personal Failure and Disappointment

• Larkin – Self’s the Man: Highlights unfulfilled ambition and missed opportunities, exposing the quiet despair of ordinary life.

• Duffy – Adultery: Emotional betrayal and moral lapses reveal personal disappointment and inner conflict.
  Link: Both examine how individuals face failure; Larkin is reflective and detached, Duffy emotionally intense and intimate

p1 quotes

adultry - see disillusionment notes

self’s the man - see regret notes

p2 Mortality and Human Suffering

• Larkin – Ambulances: Death and illness remind individuals of vulnerability and the inevitability of suffering.

• Duffy – Disgrace: Social and personal consequences of actions reveal suffering, shame, and regret.
  Link: Both explore human suffering; Larkin emphasizes existential inevitability, Duffy personal and social impact.

p2 quotes

ambulances - see isolation notes

disgrace - lexical imagery

“cherished italics suddenly sour” - sibilance, italics bring emphasis to lovely words , used to mean something now they don’t to each other

“vowels” associated w pain , language failing

“wrong language” - miscommunication

death imagery of the house to show the decaying relationship

“clothes like a corpse” - disguarded, clothes represent life- they live and breath in it, now dead like the relationship

“bowl of apples rotten to the core” bowl- unity and proximity in the relationship but its decays and died

disgrace cc

context - reflects relationships in late 20th c intimacy and privacy become more visible in literature

critic - exploration of …. human emotion both joy and pain - O’reilly