Days is a poem by Larkin that questions life. From within the first stanza we get the recognition of Larkin's beliefs between life and death. 'What are days for?' represents that this poem foucssess on life. After all days are what you spend living in. If we don't have days then we might be dead. The second part of this stanza conveys a rather colloquial or vernacular tone to it, of maybe the everyday reality of what we as humans do in a day. This is presented through the quote 'Days are where we live. They come, they wake us time and time over'. The last part of this stanza also reinforces Larkin's beliefs. He comments that 'where can we live but days?' This represents that Larkin believes we can only live on this world, in other words Larkin believes there is no heaven, after all he is atheist.
We also get the contrast between the 'priest' and the 'doctor' in the second stanza. These are used by Larkin to give us different viewpoints on life and death. After all, a priest is a religious figure and a doctor is a medical figure. One believes that there is life after death and the other does not. Doctor's can also preserve life and save you from death itself. Maybe Larkin is commenting that having faith in a doctor is more beneficial to all of us becuase they can preserve life, whereas a priest can not, they have to rely on the presence of God. Overall the two figures have different viewpoints on life and death conveying the differences in their beliefs. Hence why they are 'running over the fields' and 'solving that question'.
No comments:
Post a Comment