Afternoons

• Context for Afternoons:

  • Larkins poetry represents the repressed 1950s - women restricted by gender
  • Never married - didn't see the joy, happiness or belief in marriage / having children.
• Structure for Afternoons:

  • Split into three eight line stanzas - shows the regimented routine- nothing changes
  • Simple structure - reflects the monotony / simplistic lives the mothers live in Larkins view
• 1 . "Afternoons"

  • Suggests the repetitive nature of afternoons - implies all afternoons are similar, routine, regimented and mundane
• 2 . "Summer is fading"


  • Sets the tone
  • Verb "fading" implies the vibrant summer is ending
  • The change in seasons is also a metaphor for the change in relationships from youthful passion to people marrying / having children
  • Larkin sees this as negative - uses a melancholy tone
• 3 . "In the hollows of afternoons young mothers assemble"


  • As mothers meet up children - "hollows" = afternoons are empty - dull/lack excitement
  • Larkin believes the women are trapped by their gender
  • Noun "mothers" imply they are a group rather than individuals.
  • Motherhood has lost them their identity
• 4 . Behind them... Stand husbands in skilled trades, an estateful of washing"


  • Husbands stand "behind" the mothers - stepping back from parental responsibility - hold a sense of identity as they are "skilled" and work, unlike the mothers
  • Hyperbole "estateful" emphasises the sheer, overwhelming drudgery of domestic chores
• 5 . "Something is pushing them to the side of their own lives"


  • Final image suggests parents are no longer in control - their lives are no longer important - seen in words "pushing" and "side"
  • The children now take centre stage as the parent's lives are now side lined.
  • The use of present tense suggests situation is inevitable and relentless