whatever happened

Question 1

What is the form used for the poem Whatever Happened?

Answer 1

sonnet

Question 2

What is the three-line interlocking rhyme scheme called that is used in Whatever Happened?

Answer 2

terza rima

Question 3

Which poem describes the speaker’s attempts to rationalise and overcome an ambiguous trauma?

Answer 3

Whatever Happened?

Question 4

What is the significance of the tight rhyme scheme (terza rima) that is used in Whatever Happened?

Answer 4

It symbolises how the speaker tries to control and compartmentalize the trauma he has experienced. However, this rhyme scheme is eventually broken in the final two lines, representing how the painful memory cannot be repressed.

Question 5

‘Perspective brings ____________ we say’ (Whatever Happened?)

Answer 5

significance

Question 6

What is the significance of the voice given to society in Whatever Happened? E.g. ‘perspective brings significance we say’

Answer 6

The quasi-philosophical language is intended to mock how we as a society try to rationalise and explain away the trauma we have experienced.

Question 7

Curses? The _____________? Struggling? (Whatever Happened?)

Answer 7

dark

Question 8

What is the significance of the narrator in Whatever Happened referring to the ‘latitude on a map’ and blaming what happened on ‘coastal bedding’?

Answer 8

The language shows a desire to reduce the trauma to something technical, rather than emotional.

Question 9

What is the significance of the questions at the end of Whatever Happened? ‘Curses? The dark? Struggling?’

Answer 9

The incomplete, incoherent questions create a jarring tone, suggesting the speaker is left anxious and uncertain.

Question 10

‘Easily then (though ________________)’ (Whatever Happened?)

Answer 10

pale

Question 11

‘but find next day/All’s _______________ distant’ (Whatever Happened?)

Answer 11

Kodak

Question 12

What is the significance of the narrator in Whatever Happened? referring to the memory as being ‘Kodak distant’?

Answer 12

It conveys how he wants to reduce the trauma to a photo - something that he can control and understand.

Question 13

At the end of Whatever Happened? the main character questions - ‘Where’s the source/Of these yarns now’? - How might this have a double meaning?

Answer 13

Yarn can mean both a story and a type of thread. Therefore, Larkin suggests that the story of what happened, like unspooled thread, becomes tangled and difficult to make sense of.

Question 14

What is the ambiguous trauma described in Whatever Happened supposedly based on?

Answer 14

Larkin’s affair with Patsy Strang, who was briefly pregnant with his child before suffering a miscarriage.

Question 15

The motif of photography in Whatever Happened could have been influenced by…?

Answer 15

Larkin’s own interests - he was a keen amateur photographer.