Afternoons by Philip Larkin

Afternoons by Philip Larkin

He was a man who was fearful of death and disliked any travelling

abroad. He was a reclusive man who kept the curtains drawn to keep the

sun from fading his books. He dies in 1985; he was to have all his

diaries shredded. In the poem he writes he often seems like an

outsider observing people's lives, as in this poem where he is

watching mothers and their children in a play area.

The poem is set out in three stanzas. The first stanza the poet is

explaining how the parent's youth is fading by the opening line. The

lives of the young mothers are a very safe. This is because they are

situated in a very safe area, with other mothers. They live in a safe

community because it says in the last two lines of the first stanza

"At swing and sandpit

Setting free their children"

This is saying that they could let their children play without being

hurt and that the mother's would have a friend to talk to and have

some company if their own age rather than a two year old.

"In the hollows of the afternoons"

This means that the mothers had some free time and that the afternoons

are meaningless and empty. This sentence is a metaphor.

In the second stanza there is more nostalgic than the other stanzas.

The second stanza is telling us about the way the husband provides

financial support. The women were the ones who did the chores at home,

looked after the children and did the washing. It was the mans job to

help the young mothers with money and with support of housing.

" Behind them, at intervals,

Stand husbands in skilled trades,

An estateful of washing.."

In the second part of the second stanza it says about how the wedding

day of the mothers was the most important day in their lives in the

fifties and sixties. They kept all of the photos as memories. The

wedding was a big event and time for women in the sixties and fifties.