Larkin and Duffy- Regret

Regret

Larkin:Self,s the Man,Dockery and Son Duffy: Before You Where Mine, Mean Time

thesis

both- reflecting on missed opportunities, loss, and the passage of time.

Larkin presents it with detachment and melancholy

Duffy emphasizes emotional and personal consequences.

P1 Personal and Life Choices

• Larkin – Self’s the Man: Focuses on unfulfilled ambitions and life decisions, showing quiet personal regret.

• Duffy – Before You Were Mine: Nostalgia and reflection on the past evoke personal and familial regret.
  
  

• Link: Both explore how choices and past actions generate regret; Larkin is reflective, Duffy emotionally intimate

P1 Quotes

Duffy Quote- Tone of regret as he looks at mother’s sacrifice

“shriek at the pavement “ “-shriek playful image , onomatopoeia, carefree life , freedom and independence, societal pressures of being a woman

“marilyn” separation between past and present, killed herself - unhappy like her, sex symbol- sexuality linked with freedom, no autonomy

“My loud possessive yell” - tone of regret and guilt from the speaker

Larkin Quote - marriage is a burden , typical life speaker single

continuous rhyme scheme reflects continuous life

at the start says marriage trapped the guy and girl “stop get getting away” - burden , “wasting his life on work” - playing by tradition but not happy

structure - endless demands

end - doesn’t know if he made the right decision staying single “van- “ “suppose” - uncertain, doubtful, trying to validate himself

C AND C

Duffy - raised as caltholic - traditional values of women in 1950 explored

“strong feminist edge” - poetry foundation

Larkin - patriarchal society of 1950s

“advocate of misanthropy and pessimism” - appleyard

p2 Passage of Time and Loss

• Larkin – Dockery and Son: Aging and generational change highlight missed opportunities and inevitable loss.

• Duffy – Mean Time: Grief and the effects of time emphasize emotional consequences of loss and regret.
  Link: Both show regret as connected to the passage of time, their own mistakes; Larkin emphasizes existential inevitability, Duffy emotional resonance. Both inner thoughts.

p2 quotes

larkin - recounts a convo with the dean and brings up Dockery a student from larkins past who now has a student at the school

“locked “ “hidden” no way to reclaim the past, isolated and alienated

“to have no son no wife , no house or land seemed quite natural” regret listing the things he regrets not having

end - recognition of death and time passing , looks back on his life and realised a son was everything to dockery

“canal and clouds and colleges” - alliteration reflects moving forward of the train, away from the past and into the reality of him now

“unhindered moon” - looks at the moon reflected in train tracks and goes on a spiral thinking about how we measure and compare our life. The Moon is constant but his life isn’t , leaves questions of what have we done with this journey of life.

Duffy -mourning a break up, clocks turned back for daylight saving

light and dark imagery - light turns to dark, loosing time and opportunity, darkness is regret and taking over

Short sharp emotionally charged

“bleak streets” - isolation and alienation in how she feels

C AND C

duffy - late 20th c poetry - accessible lang , direct emotional indict , no traditional poetry structures

“exploration of … human emotion both joy and pain” - O’reilly

larkin - post war mid 20th - awareness of ordinanary middle and working class lives

saying what few of us are willing to say - gardner

“spinal cord of thought” - ford