Next Please

Question 1

What does the speaker mean when he says “we pick up bad habits of expectancy” ?

Answer 1

Without realising or being able to control it, we routinely start to live our lives in an idealised future

Question 2

Why does the speaker say that “something is approaching every day” ?

Answer 2

Becuase our understanding of the future is vague and unknown we wait for a future that never comes

Question 3

Why is the line “Till then we say” in italics ?

Answer 3

The speaker criticises how society gives up agency in the present

Question 4

What technique is used in “a sparking armada of promises draw near”?

Answer 4

Use of hyperbolic metaphor which represents new possibilities

Question 5

What does the speaker say “refusing to make haste!” ?

Answer 5

Speaker mocks how society is impatient and how we feel childish excitement about the future

Question 6

What technique is used in the line “wretched stalks of disappointment” ?

Answer 6

Metaphor of dead flowers which represents lost or missed opportunities

Question 7

Why does the speaker use an elaborate description of “beadwork printed, each rope distinct” ?

Answer 7

Uses elaborate description to show the future us still full of possibilities and vivid and wonder

Question 8

What technique is used in the line “golden tits” ?

Answer 8

Bathos is used as there is a shift in tone when the speaker mocks our idealised hopes- comedic effect

Question 9

Why does the speaker say that “we are owed”?

Answer 9

To show that society has a sense of entitlement

Question 10

What is the significance of the line “we are wrong;” ?

Answer 10

There is a shift in language and tone as the speaker uses blunt syllables to convey an unambiguous truth

Question 11

Why does the speaker say that “one ship is seeking us, a black-sailed unfamiliar”?

Answer 11

To show that whilst we like to believe that we control our own lives, death is out of our hands

Question 12

Why is the ship described as a “black sailed unfamiliar” ?

Answer 12

Because as a society we refuse to confront death

Question 13

Why is there “a huge and birdless silence in her wake”?

Answer 13

Becuase death leaves behind a vast and completely empty nothing

Question 14

Relevant context

Answer 14

Larkin was an atheist and doesn’t believe in the afterlife. He was also described as the “saddest heart in the post war supermarket”