How does Philip Larkin present death in

Ambulance’?

Presented to Sir Liaquat Presented by Bushra Mumtaz

Introduction

• As Philip Larkin grew older, he became more and more obsessed with the concept of death. Larkin was largely considered to be an atheist; so for Larkin death didn't mean passing through the pearly gates into heaven, instead death was an all-powerful entity that could take you at any time to some unknown terrifying abyss. In Larkin's poem Ambulances, he uses an ambulance to convey both the loneliness of age and death, and the fact that death comes to all, sooner or later. Ambulances are generally vehicles that are associated with help and rescue, but in this poem the ambulance is portrayed in an ominous light, in order to jar the reader's sense of security. In this poem, the ambulance is in effect like the Grim Reaper, who comes to collect souls and ferry's them into the afterlife.

• Death – leading constant theme in Larkin’s poetry• Larkin was so obsessed with the concept of death that he has been

often called “a graveyard poet”Death is unpreventable. No trick dispels. (Aubade)Death – source of fear and fright in life.“- the dread Of dying, and being dead,Flashes afresh to hold and horrify.” (Aubade)

• Death – a perpetual vehicle for our travel to eternity. “The sure extinction that we travel to And shall be lost in always, Not to be hereNot to be anywhere” (Aubade)Death gives chances to think and calculate our life and its activities.Larkin has got the stereotype feeling of an agnostic. Death- not a gateway to heaven. Death is the ultimate truth- our lives and activities are absurd (Albert Camus).

• - no sight, no sound,• No touch or taste or smell, nothing to think with, • Nothing to love or link with.”

• “I don’t want to transcend the commonplace,” Larkin told John Haffenden in 1981. “I love the commonplace. I lead a very commonplace life. Everyday things are lovely to me.” It makes sense that someone who so loved everyday life would cling fiercely to life and fear death so intensely. But by his mid-forties his fear of becoming an old man seems to have helped turn him into one. (His heavy drinking and steadily increasing weight also contributed.) From then on his life slid heavily downhill, both physically and emotionally.

Stanza 1

Larkin's uses the confessional to demonstrate the difference a generation makes; the previous generation would have gone to church to heal themselves, while the new generation with its new health care system went to hospitals; thus, the ambulance becomes the modern day confessional. Confessionals are enclosed stalls in a Roman Catholic Church in which priests hear confessions. "Closed like confessionals" is a simile; the closed door of the confessional is similar to the confined space of an ambulance when its doors are closed. Like a confessional, an ambulance can be a very vulnerable place for its inhabitants; you bear your soul in a confessional, and put your life/body in the hands of the paramedicsClosed like confessionalsIsolated areas, separate from normal flow of everyday activity.Places of sanctuary and support. Death remains as unknown to us.

‘Loud noons, of cities, giving back none of the glances they absorb.’• Death is blatant and noticeable.• Present at the heart of human civilization.• Doesn’t care how we react to it, although we are obsessed with it.

Light glossy grey

• Neither good nor evil, death simply is.• It is fitting that the ambulance is painted grey, because ambulances

often serve as the grey area between life and death; some who enter the ambulance alive leave it dead. The last two lines are particularly ominous; you never know when it will be your turn to die, but rest assured that one day it will be your turn to die. Death is inevitable and all-powerful.

‘They come to us at any kerb, All streets in time are visited.’• Omnipotent. Death is a fact of life that all living things must confront

at some point.

Stanza 2

• Then children strewn on steps or road, Or woman coming from shops’

• Interrupts the normal activities of those within its vicinity, and yet we are curious.

‘A wild white face that overtops Red stretcher-blankets momentily’• Death plays on a deep-rooted instinct, shown by alliteration, ‘wild’

and ‘Red’.• A brief event that occurs ‘momently’ which can drastically alter entire

lives.

‘As it is carried in and stowed’

• Perhaps death itself is not the end, but a means to voyage to somewhere else.

Stanza 3

‘Sense the solving emptiness That lies just under all we do, And for a second get it whole’ ConstantWe try to forget death and keep at arm’s length, and yet without it life would be meaningless

So permanent blank and true

• Larkin was an atheist, and therefore did not believe in an aftrerlife.• Of all things, death is certain.

Poor soul, they whisper at their own distress• We all fearful of what comes next • Some hope that a ‘soul’ will live on• We fell bed for others as they represent our own eventuality.

Deadened air

Death silences all those who are present, emphasizing the shock that it causes us.Kills the very air.

‘The years, the unique random blend of families and fashions’An entire life is simply snuffed out. All the ‘years’ are meaningless in the face of power of death.

‘Far from the exchange of love to lie, Unreachable inside a room’• Death is something which must confront alone.• It is not something anyone alive can understand except for those

experiencing it.• Emphasized by the separation of ‘Far/ From’.

And dulls to distance all we are

• Larkin concludes on the assumption that death is the ultimate destruction, the dulling of our personality.• The end of the ‘unique random blend.’

• Something secretive, unknown and varely seen• Stanze three• Receding or closing door are a metaphor• Suggest the end of the person’s life is near• Deadend air, sudden shut, loss end • Creates a nair of sadness and hopelessness• Thewse words epitomizes wevery thingk larkin aassoicates with an