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Comment 18 of 38, added on February 27th, 2006 at 2:14 PM.
SUCH NIALISTIC THOUGHTS FROM YOU D
ROBBY from United Kingdom
Comment 17 of 38, added on February 3rd, 2006 at 10:36 AM.
the sky at the end of the poem could be interpreted in different ways:
because these kids are freely having sex, people are disregarding god and their religious values and as a result, larkin looks up to where god is supposed to be and sees nothing. questioning the existence of god.
or:
all the cynical bonds and stigmas of premarital sex have been broken and this has been represented by a clear, infernite, free sky. emphasising liberation. also could he be lying in bed looking up at high windows? in the original draft larkin does say something about lying and thinking...
chrissss from United Kingdom
Comment 16 of 38, added on December 22nd, 2005 at 5:30 AM.
. Alternatively the last stanze could mean, that we look up wards through high windows , such as stain glass windows in church, but there is nothing, no god , no heaven , life is endless and this is what we can not comprehend as humans. Remeber Larkin was a cynic!
blobby blobb from United Kingdom
Comment 15 of 38, added on December 13th, 2005 at 5:08 AM.
because i have not properly evovled yet, i am still in monkey form, and have a hunchback with a massive head... i dont understand the poem, please explain to me in monkey language - ooh ooh ah ah
paul ernoult - the monkey from Martinique
Comment 14 of 38, added on December 9th, 2005 at 5:06 PM.
Don't you hate it when people post comments saying that larkin's just an old git? For God's sake, just look at To the Sea, The Trees, Livings 2, Friday Night, Dublinesque, the card players etc etc etc for a look at a celebratory,optimistic Larkin!
dorian from United Kingdom
Comment 13 of 38, added on November 27th, 2005 at 6:50 AM.
What a cynicall git Larkin is!
Em from United Kingdom
Comment 12 of 38, added on November 19th, 2005 at 11:38 AM.
Surely the 'long slide' referred to is ambiguous. It sounds like a helter skelter, which is fun but normally a long slide is a slippery slope downwards - to hell, not paradise. Maybe this paradise is only an illusion.
chris from United Kingdom
Comment 11 of 38, added on November 16th, 2005 at 2:14 PM.
Another interpretation is that the last stanza is Larkin realising how irrelevant such matters such as the apparent immorality of the younger generations are in the grand scheme of things and also to God. The religious theme in the poem cannot be ignored. In the last line of the poem, it supports this: Nothing - God is not a physical presence. Nowhere - God is omnipresent and therefore is nowhere at any one time. Endless - God lasts forever. He always has been here and will always will be.
the dawg from United Kingdom
Comment 10 of 38, added on November 13th, 2005 at 5:04 PM.
My interpretation of the poem is that it’s about how every generation is freer than the previous one from the bonds of such things as religion, marriage, god and chivalry, as they become aware of how superficial all this is. The persona Larkin adopts is that of a member of an older generation who realises how his life has been suppressed by these things, and how the next generation are having a better time, being younger and freer from these bonds, creating their own rules. Here is my analogy of the poem:
The narrator’s train of thought about all this is triggered off by the sighting of two “kids”, who he suspects are having care-free pre-marital sex. He proclaims his jealousy of their freedom quite simply with the lines “I know this is paradise everyone old has dreamed of all their lives”.
He then goes on to make an interesting comparison of the bonds to “an outdated combine harvester”. Something that has processed and striped us but now is pushed aside, outdated.
The next thought that enters the narrators head is whether or not anyone observed him in the same light when he was the same age, at how he didn’t live in constant fear of hell and god, and of course the priest. The narrator imagines this observer from an older generation thinking that the narrator and his generation will “go down the long slide [life] like free bloody birds”.
Then the last part of the poem, the high windows section, is the narrator’s final reflection, making an analogy of his situation to that of someone stuck indoors looking longingly out at a clear blue sky. The “sun comprehending glass” is the narrator’s new found state of mind, his understanding of why the younger generation is better off. His state of mind to their situation is like the glass is to the sun/outdoors, understanding the other for what it is, for its true identity as a better place to be. And then beyond the glass, “the deep blue air, that shows nothing, and is nowhere, and is endless.” This is quite simply freedom, and that is what the narrator is looking longingly out on, that is where the younger generations are.
That was my personal interpretation of the poem, but it could also be seen to have a “grass is always greener on the other side” analogy, saying how all generations will feel like this in their old age as they approach death, and instead of regretting what happened during your life, you should look forward to the mystery of what happens when you die. This afterlife is “the deep blue air, that shows nothing, and is nowhere, and is endless.”
Joe from United Kingdom
Comment 9 of 38, added on November 12th, 2005 at 2:25 PM.
Bla, bla, bla. His flat had high windows. He looked through these windows, to look outside. To see what?--sky. Uncomprehending, meaningless, empty, blue sky. All is meaningless because we're going to die. Everything else is distraction from that point. The speaker realizes that--the only logical response is his--useless contemplation of the nothing out there.
D
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SUCH NIALISTIC THOUGHTS FROM YOU D
ROBBY from United Kingdom