Take One Home For The Kiddies - Larkin

Take One Home For The Kiddies is a poem by Larkin that includes the themes of advertisement and death. The strap line was used within advertisement during the 1960s. Within stanza one we get the sense that the children in the poem want to get a new pet, however it seems as though they don't value the pet that they are getting and merely view it as an object. They comment 'Mam, get us one of them to keep'. The fact that they use a vague personal pronoun 'them' reinforces the idea that this pet doesn't mean anything to the children and it is just like a toy.

Within the second stanza we get the quote 'living toys are something novel' suggesting at first the children are delighted to have a living toy. Again the reference to 'toy' conveys the pet as if it isn't real, that it is just something that the children are able to play with. However, 'it soon wears off' suggesting that the children then become bored with the pet after a while. It also seems apparent that death doesn't really mean much to the children, we get the sense that this pet can be easily replaced. Larkin is making a comment that children always want the next best thing. The fact that they are 'playing funerals' suggests that the death of the pet is a game to them, it conveys the children's callowness of life and that they truly don't value animals. It almost if they get to play funerals and then it's back to the pet shop to buy another pet.

This poem could link to some of the death poems by Abse such as An Old Commitment, A Winter Visit, On the Coast Road, The Death of Aunt Alice and In Llandough Hospital. All of these poems give different views on death that you can compare and contrast. In terms of Larkin you could link to Home is So Sad and Ambulances.