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The Whitsun Weddings - Philip Larkin
Summary
Larkin’s The Whitsun Weddings was the title of one of his books of poetry, published in 1964
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As the train churns through the
heatwave that the narrator describes, he gradually expands his view to take in the people
that are around him, including a wedding party that is seeing couples boarding the train
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As the train moves southward, he turns instead
to the newlywed, and considers the hugeness of what they have done, and how ultimately, it
is only a big deal to the couple getting married
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The main themes of the poem are change, modernity, love, disconnection and class
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● ‘Wide farms went by, short-shadowed cattle, and
canals with floatings of industrial froth’
Asyndetic listing
As the list progresses, we leave the rural countryside and see the more modern
‘industrial froth’ which isn’t quite as pleasing
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● ‘The lemons, mauves, and olive ochres’
Asyndetic listing
● ‘Success so huge and wholly farcical;
The women shared
The secret like a happy funeral;
While girls, gripping their handbags tighter, stared
At a religious wounding
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The ‘religious wounding’ is possibly Larkin suggesting that marriage is more harmful
than pleasant
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This also links to
the ‘happy funeral’ since the ‘funeral’ could be for the woman’s loss of innocence
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● ‘Of blinding windscreens, smelt the fish-dock’
Sensory detail
Used to help paint the picture better for the reader and to bring them into Larkin’s
word easily
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● ‘Tall heat that slept’
Personification
Suggesting that the heat is stifling
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Sibilance and assonance
Phonology is used here to mirror what is being said in the line; the line mentions it
being ‘slow’ and the use of these phonological effects makes it feel slow
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● ‘And rose: and now and then a smell of grass
Displaced the reek of buttoned carriage-cloth’
Sensory detail and contrast
Larkin again uses sensory detail to paint an image for the reader however he also
uses contrast; the train carriage is described negatively which again links to Larkin’s
dislike of modernity
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● ‘We passed them, grinning and pomaded, girls
In parodies of fashion, heels and veils,’
Noun and plosives
The plural noun ‘parodies’ here suggests that the people are trying to mimic current
trends but look, in Larkin’s opinion, stupid; it suggests that Larkin is critical of the
people that do this
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● ‘Waving goodbye
To something that survived it’
Suggests that the only thing that will ‘survive’ of the wedding will be the people that
witnessed it but not the couple, suggesting that marriage is, again, harmful
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‘mothers loud and fat;’
Monosyllabic adjectives
Larkin uses monosyllabic adjectives to emphasise how lowly he thinks of these
working class women
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Larkin is reducing these people down to their clothing which, again, suggests that he
thinks lowly of them
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Larkin is criticising women for the things that they wear to weddings and suggesting
that they look ridiculous
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‘And banquet-halls up yards’
Larkin is suggesting that they can’t afford nice banquet halls so use nearby cheaper
locations
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‘I nearly died’
Hyperbole
This suggests that the persona or someone else on the train felt embarrassed, it feels
slightly melodramatic and like an overreaction
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‘Sitting side by side’
Sibilance
The sibilance here makes the sentence feel comforting and slightly melodic which
suggests a sense of romance
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‘A sense of falling, like an arrow-shower
Sent out of sight, somewhere becoming rain’
Metaphor and pathetic fallacy
One interpretation of the metaphor could be that it is an allusion to cupid since cupid
makes people fall in love and the persona is surrounded by newly weds
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However, it could also be interpreted as the sudden reality of what being married
means that the couples will now feel
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The pathetic fallacy used reinforces the idea of the metaphor representing conflict
since rain connotes sadness
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