Afternoons Flashcards
(9 cards)
About
a poem about young mothers and their mundane lives as they have given up their own lives after child birth to look after their children. The poem opens with the suggestion of the time passing, of Summer drawing to a close, and the sense of decay and decline through the rest of the poem
Language
Plain, everyday language mirrors the simplicity and ordinariness of the women’s lives.
Passive voice: (“something is pushing them”) — suggests the women are acted upon, not active agents in their lives.
Melancholic tone: reinforced by soft consonants and long vowel sounds, which create a slow, resigned mood.
Semantic field of decay and routine: words like “falling”, “hollows”, “fading” suggest ageing and decline.
Imagery
Seasonal imagery: autumn and fading light symbolise the decline of youth and the creeping responsibilities of adulthood.
Nature vs Suburbia: natural growth (trees, sunlight) contrasts with the mechanical, boxed-in world of “estates”.
Domestic imagery: “laundry”, “courting-places” becoming playgrounds — show how romance has been replaced by duty
Structure
Three equal stanzas (8 lines each) — suggests a monotonous, repetitive cycle of life.
Enjambment: lines flow into each other, reflecting the endless passing of time and blurred loss of identity.
Lack of strong rhyme: creates a flat, realistic tone — life isn’t neat or poetic; it just drifts.
Progression: from observing nature and children, to focusing on the women’s lost opportunities — a slow build of sadness.
‘Summer is fading’
Seasonal metaphor: summer symbolises youth and vitality; its fading represents the inevitable decline into adulthood and loss of freedom.
: Larkin uses natural change to mirror emotional change, suggesting that ageing and loss are as inevitable as the seasons.
‘Young mothers assemble at sandpit and swing’
Assemble sounds mechanical, like parts on a factory line — stripping emotion and individuality from motherhood.
Larkin critiques how domestic life reduces women to functional roles, emphasising their loss of personal identity.
‘Behind them, at interval, / Stand husbands in skilled trades’
Behind them: spatial imagery shows emotional and literal distance between women and their husbands.
Intervals suggests sporadic, unreliable presence.
Larkin paints a quietly critical view of gender roles — women bear emotional labour while men are detached.
‘Their beauty has thickened’
Euphemism for ageing — thickened implies coarsening, heaviness, a subtle loss of youthful lightness.
Larkin’s understated description reflects a cruel societal truth: youth and beauty are fleeting, and with it goes opportunity and romance.
‘Something is pushing them / To the side of their own lives’
Something is vague — could be time, society, duty, motherhood itself.
Pushing is passive and external, suggesting loss of control over their own futures.
This captures the ultimate tragedy Larkin sees — lives lived not fully, but sidestepped, as women are nudged out of their own dreams.
