No Road Flashcards
(15 cards)
Analyse Larkin’s use of enjambment: ‘us//Falls to disuse’
symbolic of the couples separation
Analyse: ‘bricked our gates up, planted trees to screen us, And turned all time’s eroding agents loose’
Use of listing emphasise of the drastic measures taken by the couple to forcefully create space between themselves.
Analyse: ‘turned all time’s eroding agents loose’
Personification of time suggests it slowly destroys the relationship. Time presented as inescapable, undeniable force.
Analyse: ‘Silence, space and strangers’
Use of sibilance suggestive of mutual respect show through harmony. The polysyndeton emphasises the couples agreement to separate peacefully.
Analyse: ‘unswept…unmown’
Repetition of negating prefix conveys how the relationship is not being taken care of and is no longer nurtured by the couple. AO3: convention of Thomas Hardy
Analyse: ‘So clear it stands, so little overgrown’
Clear suggests the speaker is drawn to the road between him and his ex-partner as not a lot of time has passed
Analyse: ‘time would be the stronger’
Speaker believes that time will force the separation to become easier as it is an overpowering force.
Why does Larking use a rhyming couplet at the end of the second stansa? ‘longer’/’stronger’
creates a sense of harmony and peace in times ability to create ease in the separation from his partner
Analyse: ‘from you to me’
Use of first person pronouns contrasts the use of ‘we’ and ‘us’ in the start to emphasise that the growing divide between the couple as they become entirely separate entities
analyse ‘like a cold sun’
Simile/oxymoron - speaker suggests that it unsettles them to live in the world without their previous partner. The divide appears positive, but the challenge of moving on creates a discomfort that results in a bittersweet sentiment
Why does Larkin use jumbled syntax? ‘Rewarding others, is my liberty…my ailment’
reflects the speakers growing sense of unease which leads him into confusion as he views his desire for solitude as both fulfilling and draining. The speaker accepts the uncomfortable truth that being alone is freeing and even fulfilling, but wonders if this is the right way to find happiness.
Analyse ‘Willing it, my ailment’
Use of caesura reflects the speakers split mind. He doesn’t know if he wants the relationship or solitude.
What biographical context can be linked to No Road?
The poem was written around the same time that Larkin called off his engagement to Ruth Bowman in 1950
What rhyme scheme does Larkin use in No Road and why?
ABABCC - conveys how the relationship eventually meanders off with separation
Why does No Road use sestets?
Consistent stansa length represents the speakers desire for the relationship to move steadily into solitude, and his perpetual certainty that relationships are always bound to end.
