Theme

Love and Relationships

The Poem

If my darling were once to decide

Not to stop at my eyes,

But to jump, like Alice, with floating skirt into my head.

She would find no table and chairs,

No mahogany claw-footed sideboards,

No undisturbed embers;

The tantalus would not be filled, nor the fender-seat cosy,

Nor the shelves stuffed with small-printed books for the Sabbath,

Nor the butler bibulous, the housemaids lazy:

She would find herself looped with the creep of varying light,

Monkey-brown, fish-grey, a string of infected circles

Loitering like bullies, about to coagulate;

Delusions that shrink to the size of a woman’s glove,

Then sicken inclusively outwards. She would also remark

The unwholesome floor, as it might be the skin of a grave

From which ascends an adhesive sense of betrayal

A Grecian statue kicked in the privates, money,

A swill-tub of finer feelings. But most of all

She’d be stopping her ears against the incessant recital

Intoned by reality, larded with technical terms

Each one double-yolked with meaning and meaning’s rebuttal.

For the skirl of that bulletin unpicks the world like a knot,

And to hear how the past is past and the future neuter

Might knock my darling off her unpriceable pivot.

Analysis

If my darling were once to decide

Not to stop at my eyes,

But to jump, like Alice, with floating skirt into my head.

• ‘to jump’ - verb. Coveys the idea of freedom and personal decision relating to being brave; provides women with more control.

• ‘like Alice’ - simile and reference to Alice in Wonderland.

• ‘floating’ - gerund, highlights the active role the speaker has.

• ‘into my head’ - double entendre.

She would find no table and chairs,

No mahogany claw-footed sideboards,

No undisturbed embers;

• Repetition of ‘No’. Beginning the the lines with ‘No’ evokes a sense of negativity and removes the stability.

The tantalus would not be filled, nor the fender-seat cosy,

• tantalus = a stand in which spirit decanters may be locked up though still visible.

• ‘nor the fender-seat cosy’ - removes the speaker from the domestic setting.

Nor the shelves stuffed with small-printed books for the Sabbath,

Nor the butler bibulous, the housemaids lazy:

• Alliteration.

• Consecutive oxymoron - contradicts the idle of an individual moral versus their purpose.

She would find herself looped with the creep of varying light,

Monkey-brown, fish-grey, a string of infected circles

• Metaphor - represents the corrupted yet inescapable nature of society, and how we cannot avoid bad.

Loitering like bullies, about to coagulate;

• Simile - exemplifies the aggressive views of the speaker and how there is an overarching presence that exists.

Delusions that shrink to the size of a woman’s glove,

Then sicken inclusively outwards. She would also remark

The unwholesome floor, as it might be the skin of a grave

• Metaphor - represents how we are our own trap in society and people are filled with flaws.

From which ascends an adhesive sense of betrayal

A Grecian statue kicked in the privates, money,

• Juxtaposition - distrupts traditions.

A swill-tub of finer feelings. But most of all

• swill-tub = a drunkard

She’d be stopping her ears against the incessant recital

Intoned by reality, larded with technical terms

• Alliteration.

Each one double-yolked with meaning and meaning’s rebuttal.

• End-stop line.

For the skirl of that bulletin unpicks the world like a knot,

And to hear how the past is past and the future neuter

Might knock my darling off her unpriceable pivot.

• End-stop line.

Context

• After World War Two, English society was reforming as the war had destroyed many traditional landscapes, and so this idea of outward vs inward realities is explored in this poem.

• Moreover, Larkin typically explored life with ‘sad-eyed realism’ in his works and he does this in the poem by establishing the sense that we have two different traits in this world.