title - celebrating selfishness
Links - Dockery and Son - comparing two lives.
1st person - Larkin persona, talking about Arnold-been married a long time
Larkin poems:paradox
What Larkin thinks is a marriage - 'now she's there all day'
'she takes as her perk'
'kiddies'
'it's put a screw in this wall - he has no time at all'
'and that letter to her mother'
Stanza 1: 'a woman' - no name - dismissive - derogatory
Stanza 2: 'wasting his life on work' - thinks that there should be more to life
Stanza 3: 'he has no time at all' - larkin is alone and has all the time in the world but Arnold is always on the go and can never relax - contrast
Stanza 4: 'and that letter to her mother saying wont you come for the summer' - the mother-in-law, realism, dramatised - embedded dialogue.
Stanza 5: 'oh, no one can deny that Arnold is less selfish than i.' - sarcasm, society thinks Arnold is less selfish than larkin because he has a family.
Stanza 6: 'but wait, not so fast' - every human is selfish - being selfless makes you feel better which is actually selfish.
'is there such a contrast?' - different take on it - he is in fact selfish on the inside - same as larkin.
'he was out for his own ends not just pleasing his friends' - Arnold got married to please himself.
Stanza 7: 'only im a better hand at knowing what i can stand!' - knows what he wanted and what he was prepared to do.
regular rhyme - less sincere, bouncy and jumpy, makes it comical
written in the style of not a very good poet - sarcasm, mocking the working class.
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