Exploring Identity and Time in Here, An Arundel Tomb and The Whitsun Weddings :: An Arundel Tomb

Exploring Identity and Time in hither, An Arundel Tomb and The Whitsun Weddings Larkin has been criticized over the years for the moroseness of his poems, the blackened description of everyday life that some stack say lacks depth, however, unlike many other poets, Larkin does non always write the truth or the depth of his feelings. In many there is a voice, stressful to convince its author of something that is usually quite evident or exploring itself but revealing only the surface. Why he is trying to convince himself and what are is uncoiled feelings present the real challenge and profundity of Larkin poems. The search for ones identity, combined for everybody in ones unique fantasies and realities is a recurrent theme in his poems. As is time, the passing of it, the shimmy it engenders and the damage it inflicts. In hither, identity or the search for ones identity is the main theme. The search is symbolized by the journey taken by Larkin, which takes him through the countrysi de in advance remove, through Hull and finally into the countryside and the beach outside Hull. He finds his identity in the countryside outside Hull, however, he knows that although it is here that he yearns for, it is not his true self, it is his fantasy, the Here he would like to live in but that is nevertheless out of reach. His real identity can be found in Hull with the people and city he so despises. His journey starts in the farm lands before Hull, he does not stop his car, he swerves passed everything as he knows it is not what he is searching for and the slowness of the life he describes here is used in channel to the imagined speed of the authors swerving vehicle on the motorway. His coterminous stop, his reaching in Hull marks an abrupt change in scenery (the surprise of a large town) and the driver stops his car, Larkin uses the word Here here for the first time so that we assume he has at last found something, a part of his identity. What he sees, described in the next two paragraphs is a city he despises, a city of people whom he feels are below him, yet he knows it and them extremely. He knows about the contrast between its domes and statues and grain scattered streets, as he knows the people there, he describes their movements as stealing suggesting stealth and sleaze as they move towards the supermarkets, swinging doors to their desires, accenting that the desires are theirs.