Afternoons by Larkin: Stanza Three Analysis- Eduqas Bolton English Tuition.

Behind them, at intervals,
Stand husbands in skilled trades,
An estateful of washing,
And the albums, lettered
Our Wedding, lying
Near the television:
Before them, the wind
Is ruining their courting-places

Larkin’s use of the preposition ‘behind’ shows the innate ambivalence of relationships in Afternoons. Is he suggesting that the women are supported financially and emotionally by their husbands? If so, is the arrangement ‘at intervals’ of these’ husbands‘ in any way ironic? Larking seems fascinated by the herd mentality of human beings perhaps. He sees our choices are essentially illusory and the poem delivers a rather bleak vision of the compromises that marriage and motherhood entail.

Look at the mock-heroic ‘skilled trades’ which suggests that the husbands have special training and skill that are unavailable to women. Larkin seems class conscious too and is separating these men from the professional classes who may be university educated and practice law or medicine.

I certainly detect an underlying irony that motherhood is not deemed a skilled trade and that the geographical freedom of husbands is not shared by their wives. The enclosed world of the recreation ground and the banality of the swings and sandpit, show the gulf that exists between women and men at this time.

When Larkin refers to an ‘estateful of washing’ we recognise the symbolism of the image with its designated, communal washing day. Individuality has been sacrificed to convention and conformity. Estates are group living spaces where the identity of the individual is subsumed by suburban, architectural conformity. Yet who washes the clothes, we wonder? Surely, the shared experience of a washing day belongs to the female population who are at home attending to their ( by implication) unskilled trades.

Within these suburban homes, ‘Our Wedding’ Albums are ‘lying/near the television.’ Ever the ironist, Larkin’s observation seems to imply that the importance of the ‘big day’ has diminished with the passage of time and with the stresses of family life. The precious album is now co-existing with the ‘TV’ which we suspect dominates family life rather more than the original dream of such a life. Larkin also employs a homophone, ‘lying’ to unsettle the importance of ‘Our wedding’ still further. perhaps the poet is showing pathos in the deception surrounding the illusions and falsifications around married life. I can mentally ‘see’ the coffee stains now on the once importance album. Everything in Larkin dwindles to the banality and repetition of the daily, perhaps.

The final couplet reminds us of the enclosed lives of women. Ironically supported by the ‘skilled’ husbands who enjoy the escape of work, the original ‘places’ associated with romance have lost their relevance and power. Is the ‘wind’ even malicious in its ‘ruining’ of the special places? All romance, we suspect, has become diminished or diluted by the harsh reality of the everyday. By the time women realise their folly, it is too late. They have nothing to look forward to except the temporary relief and release of the ‘sandpit.’