Toads
by
Philip Larkin
(The Poem & Summary)
Philip
Arthur Larkin (1922 – 1985) was an English poet, novelist, and librarian. His
first book of poetry, The North Ship, was published in 1945, followed by two
novels, Jill (1946) and A Girl in Winter (1947), and he came to prominence in
1955 with the publication of his second collection of poems, The Less Deceived,
followed by The Whitsun Weddings (1964) and High Windows (1974). He edited The
Oxford Book of Twentieth Century English Verse (1973). His many honours include
the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry.
After
graduating from Oxford University in 1943, Larkin became a librarian.
Influenced by W. H. Auden, W. B. Yeats, and Thomas Hardy, his poems are highly
structured but flexible verse forms.
Toads
(The
Poem)
Why
should I let the toad work
Squat
on my life?
Can’t
I use my wit as a pitchfork
And
drive the brute off?
Six
days of the week it soils
With
its sickening poison –
Just
for paying a few bills!
That’s
out of proportion.
Lots
of folk live on their wits:
Lecturers,
lispers,
Losels,
loblolly-men, louts-
They
don’t end as paupers;
Lots
of folk live up lanes
With
fires in a bucket,
Eat
windfalls and tinned sardines-
they
seem to like it.
Their
nippers have got bare feet,
Their
unspeakable wives
Are
skinny as whippets – and yet
No
one actually starves.
Ah,
were I courageous enough
To
shout Stuff your pension!
But
I know, all too well, that’s the stuff
That
dreams are made on:
For
something sufficiently toad-like
Squats
in me, too;
Its
hunkers are heavy as hard luck,
And
cold as snow,
And
will never allow me to blarney
My
way of getting
The
fame and the girl and the money
All
at one sitting.
I
don’t say, one bodies the other
One’s
spiritual truth;
But
I do say it’s hard to lose either,
When
you have both.
Summary
In
the poem, describing his work as a toad, the poet asks, why he should allow
this toad to become a burden on his life. He wants, his wit or intelligence, to
fling this toad away in order to get rid of it. This toad makes the six working
days of every week of his life miserable, and he has to endure this toad (his
work/duties) just to meet his routine expenses. The money, which he gets for
enduring this toad, is too little for the amount of work which he has to do. The
poet, further says, that in this world, there are many people, who do not have
to work, and who maintain themselves merely by using their wits. There are
lecturers; there are persons who speak in an affected manner to impress others;
there are the never-do-wells; there are the idlers, and others like them. All
such persons manage to exist in this world without becoming paupers. There are
people, like the gypsies, who have no homes and who live in temporary
structures or in tents, lighting their fires in buckets. They eat just what
they get by chance, or they eat tinned sardines, and they seem to like this way
of living. Their children go about bare-foot because they cannot afford shoes.
The men-folk among these people have wretched wives who are as thin as a
race-dog. In spite of their poverty, these people manage to exist in the world
without starving.
The
poet wishes for enough courage, to throw up his job and his pension but he
cannot leave his job because he knows that to lead a life without work is
something impossible for him. He cannot leave his job because of the toad,
which forces him to continue working. This toad-like creature is so demanding
and stern that the poet cannot resist it. This inner toad (inner urge to work)
would not even allow him to use persuasion or flattery in order to achieve his
desire for fame, to marry the girl whom he loves, and to get the money which he
needs for his food and other expenses. The poet cannot says, that the toad
outside forces him to work; and his conscience within him also urges him to
work. But the two compulsions are of different kinds. And it is difficult for
him to get rid of either of these compelling forces. The two forces exist side
by side, leaving him no choice except to work.
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