The Whitsun Weddings

Question 1

Critic

Andrew Green: emotion of marraige

Answer 1

‘Marriage is not pure gain, but also embodies a bitter-sweet sense of loss’

Question 2

Theme:

Question 3

‘Where sky and Lincolnshire and water meet’

Question 4

‘A slow stopping curve southwards’

Question 5

‘Canals with floating of industrial froth’

Question 6

‘And down the long cool platforms whoops and skirls I took for porters larking with the mails, And went on reading’

Question 7

‘Grinning and pomaded, girls In parodied of fashion’

Question 8

‘Mothers loud and fat; An uncle shouting smut; and then the perms, The nylon gloves and jewellery-substitutes’

Question 9

‘Fresh couples climbed aboard’

Question 10

‘The women shared The secret like a happy funeral’

Question 11

‘At a religious wounding’

Question 12

‘A dozen marriages got under way’

Question 13

‘I thought of London spread out in the sun, It’s postal districts packed like squares of wheat’

Question 14

‘A sense of falling, like an arrow-shower Sent out of sight, somewhere becoming rain’