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DECEPTION - Philip Larkin, analysis of first stanza, Analysis of stanza…
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analysis of first stanza
'worry of wheels', life goes on as normal while this awful event is happening, ignorance to her trauma
'bridal London bows the other way', the juxtaposition that she will no longer manage to be a bride as her 'purity' is not removed, the hypocrisy of victorian england
'ever so distant, i can taste the grief', flood of adrenaline, fight or flight governance
'and light, unanswerable tall and wide', a criticism of the benevolent God not protecting her from, her craving the darkness to hide her 'shame' as she is ruined
'your mind lay open like a drawer of knives' and 'bitter and sharp with stalks', evokes a dangerous response, that her trauma can be held against her
attempt to capture and the anguish and grief of a sexual assault survivor, however it seems to immediately be about him.
Analysis of stanza two
'slums, years, have buried you', her potential is lost and dead as she cannot marry out of poverty
'desire takes charge, reading will grow erratic', absolving man of guilt, instead of sympathy for victim
'I would not dare console you if I could', Larkin does not attempt to empathise as he understands he cannot relate to the trauma
'that you were less deceived [...] than he was', she was deceived in feeling safe with him and in the role of manhood, but he is deceived as he did not reach fulfilment out of sex, but is problematic as almost sympathetic to the mans position. He is more deceived as he fooled himself and was not foolish
'stumbling up the breathless stair to burst into fulfilment's desolate attic', the darker connotations of ones psyche, with many sexual symbols. The dark, instinctual desire of something that is inherently wrong, animalistic tendencies.