Larkin and Duffy- Isolation/loneliness

Isolation/loneliness

Larkin:Mr Bleany, Ambulances  Duffy:Room, Mean Time

thesis

both- showing how individuals experience emotional, social, and existential separation

Larkin presents it with detachment and reflection on ordinary life,

Duffy emphasizes personal and psychological aspects

p1 Everyday Loneliness

• Larkin – Mr Bleaney: A solitary life is revealed through routine and sparse possessions, highlighting quiet isolation.

• Duffy – Room: Domestic space reflects confinement and emotional isolation, emphasizing personal experience.
  Link: Both show how ordinary spaces reveal loneliness; Larkin observes social reality, Duffy explores emotional depth

p1 quotes

larkin - see characters notes

duffy - 90£ pw - expensive for what it is, economic constraints , trapped in mundane domestic reality

cool lightbulb , one chair , room, no curtains

room cc

context - 20th c domestic british life

“everyday conversational language “ - british council

p2 Mortality and Existential Isolation

• Ambulances: Awareness of death highlights existential isolation and vulnerability.

• Duffy – Mean Time: Grief and loss amplify personal loneliness, reflecting emotional and psychological impact.
  Link: Both show how human life confronts isolation; Larkin emphasizes inevitability, Duffy emotional resonance.

p2 quotes

duffy - mean time shows the grief and isolation after a break up - light vs dark , pathetic fallacy

ambulances - emotional impacts of seeing ambulance in public, symbolic of inevitability of life and death

“solving emptiness that lies just under all we do” - death a final answer to uncertainty of life, omnipresent death

emptiness - isolation, fear

“closed like confessionals “ compares it to church confessional, death final confession , quote, secrecy, closed - alone

mean time and ambulances cc

mean time

context - 1990s britain emotional realism in literature

“nakedly honest” - O’reilly

ambulances

urban post war britain , changing views on death

“preoccupation with how transient … everything in the world is “ COX