Ambulances - Philip Larkin

Intro

"Ambulances" by Philip LArkin is a poem following the route of an ambulance through rush hour in a city, chartering its course and its meaning. The poem is an exploration of the pervading sense of death that occurs in constrained societies. Although nowadays, death is far less common than in the medieval era, there is still a stigma and a fear surrounding the question of death, and this is perhaps the reason that led Larkin to exploring it in poetry.

"Closed like confessionals"

Suggesting the ambulances are elite.

Simile comparing ambulances to confessional booth, connotations of confessing sins before death.

Word choice suggests ambulances are very private. No one can see what's inside them.

This idea of privacy and divinity is implied about the ambulance and death itself.

As vehicles, they are hardly considered sacred, but for Larkin in this moment, they are.

"They thread"

Writing about the ambulance in a unique way, conveying their mysterious and pervasive nature.

They are in a hurry, weaving through the traffic.

Suggests the ambulance is floating, not touching the living population.

This has connotations of sirens, wailing women seen upon the moment of death. The wailing of sirens is similar to the siren of an ambulance.

"As it is carried in and stowed"

"Stowed" suggests the body is an object, once dead they are no longer considered a person.

It also founds fairly casual for placing down a body, almost like a routine, emphasising how normal the scenario of death is to the paramedics. They are no longer effected buy it.

This shows that despite how we as a society try to overlook it, death is happening all the time.

"All streets in time are visited"

Thereby proves that there is no triumph over death.

Larkin believes that everyone is going the same way, regardless of whether or not they want to go there.

This conveyed view on death and interest in ambulances is presenting a very bleak outlook on life, as Larkin is trying to tell the reader that death is inevitable and all around us.

This suggests that Larkin, himself, has a very negative view on life.

"Poor soul, / they whisper at their own distress"

Passers by are expressing sympathy for the person in the ambulance.

Despite this, they are also expressing sympathy for themselves, as they know that one day they will be taken away like that.

"The exchange from love to lie / unreachable inside a room"

In the final stanza, Larkin finally explains what death is.

This quote means that even the power of love, life and family cannot push death aside.

Larkin believes the ultimate fate of man is to die.

"Brings closer what is left to come"

Creates a morbid tone.

Suggests we are all getting closer to death.

Personifies the ambulance as an omen, bringing death and spreading misery.

"Dulls to the distance all we are"

"Dulls" has connotations of lifelessness, suggesting the bland nature of life.

"any kerb"

"All streets"

Word choice- inevitability of death

"loud noons of cities, giving back / none of the glances they absorb"

seems to be almost floating along the road, never quite touching the living population. It brings to mind a kelpie or a siren, a wailing woman who is only seen upon the moment of death.

"children strewn on steps or road, / Or women coming from the shops"

The moment of death is captured outside of the viewer; it is transformed through the eyes of (quote) because it has suddenly become a sideshow, it contrasts and conflicts with the previous stanza, where the ambulance was written about as a 'confessional'. Although death is, itself, a very private moment, there are always those on the fringe edges that catch sight of it, and stand, and gawk.

"the solving emptiness that lies just under all we do"

For Larkin, at least in this stanza, he questions why we bother doing the things we do; there is no point to life, as we will all wind up dead and in the ground at the end of it, sooner or later. However, Larkin's point is that this is not something known to people, and it is only when we are witness or around death that it occurs to us that there is an end to life, an end to existence, there is a blank nothingness to follow (something that Larkin was particularly afraid of) our lives.

"the unique random blend / of families and fashions"

Larkin does not merely write that life ends, and there is nothing after; he first points out what the end of life means.At the end of life, that is all that is left of a person: their family, and their habits, their memories strewn across a generation or two. It could be argued that there is not, in fact, any sort of emptiness, however this is not a point that Larkin explores - it is not something that the dead person understands, or knows, after they are gone, and this is specifically about death in all its self-centered application; death as an experience only for the deceased, and not for the people who struggle on afterwards.

"the exchange of love to lie / unreachable inside a room"

Even the power of love, and life, and family, cannot push death aside, and it is the ultimate fate of man to die

"the traffic parks to let go by"

it is the room that puts the people who have died 'unreachable' to all the things that they lived for; however, this is not the only point that the ambulance makes

"brings closer what is left to come, / And dulls to distance all we are"

Larkin references it as a kind of omen, stating that it. As a reminder of death, the ambulance reminds us all that we are not immortal, and we will not survive forever.

"Brings closer what is left to come,/

And dulls to distance all we are" 2

EXTENDED ANSWER - The final stanza also points out that every brush with death we experience - however indistinct - further isolates us, makes us introspective, and forces us to ruminate on our own experiences, our own lives, our own fragile existence.