Next Please Flashcards
Explore the title “Next, Please.”
Abbreviated title.
Haste at which opportunities come and go.
, - speed/tempo.
Explore the quote, “Always too eager for the future,”
We spend so much time planning the future, and we forget to live in the present - don’t value the present.
Explore the quote, “Pick up bad habits of expectancy.”
End stopped.
Speaker assumes this will happen.
Explore the quote, “Something is always approaching; everyday”
‘Something’
Vague language - future is uncertain.
Explore the italic, “Till then we say.”
State of inaction in the present.
Italics - speaker + society’s voice.
Monosyllabic and in 1st person - speaker positions with society.
We routinely live our lives in hope for the future.
Explore the quote, “Sparkling armada of promises.”
Hyperbole.
War imagery.
Contrasts - opportunities can be overwhelming but attractive.
Explore the quote, “How slow they are! And how much time they waste, Refusing to make haste!”
Exclaimative sentence (repetition) - mocking tone - societies passivity for the future is child-like excitement.
Explore the quote “wretched stalks Of dissapointment,”
Metaphor - imagery of dead flowers - suggests that when the future does come, it is perhaps anticlimactic. Perhaps it also suggests that living in the future is fruitless.
Explore the quote “brasswork prinked, Each rope distinct,”
The ship is purposely elaborate, largely impressive and eye-catching.
It’s glorious with opportunities/vivid with promise - hyperbolic - we view the future with wonder/awe.
Explore the quote, “Flagged, and the figurehead wit golden tits”
Bathos (anticlimax created by lapse in mood).
Larkin uses vulgar/crude language in order to undercut the splendidness of the previous image - mocking to highlight our foolishness of having such future imaginings.
Explore the quote, “But we are wrong:”
‘But’ - volta.
‘We’ - first person plural - speaker groups himself with society - monosyllabic language - perhaps emphases that we are wrong in being hopeful.
