what is the theme of going going by Philip Larkin
Answers
We’ve analysed a fair few Philip Larkin poems over the last year or so, and had largely said everything we had to say about his work. But we’ve been inspired to write about ‘Going, Going’ because of popular demand, of a kind. Another of our posts, an analysis of another Larkin poem titled simply ‘Going’, has been receiving a great deal of traffic, but people have reached it by searching for an analysis of ‘Going, Going’. Which is a completely different poem. Since ‘Going, Going’ is fine late Larkin, we thought we’d offer some thoughts on this poem, which you can read here.
‘Going, Going’: the title immediately summons the third, unspoken word in the usual auctioneer’s phrase: ‘Going, going, gone.’ Britain is not quite gone altogether, but it is going, and it is being auctioned off, sold to the highest bidder. This, in a sentence, is the ‘gist’ or meaning of Larkin’s poem. But as ever with Larkin, the way he explores and puts across this idea is a masterclass in verse-making.
Before we get to the question of what Larkin’s poem is saying and how he achieves his effects, a brief summary of ‘Going, Going’ might be useful. Larkin’s speaker begins by lamenting the fact that the English countryside – which he always thought would be preserved during his lifetime – is starting to disappear at an alarming rate. He’s encountered newspaper ‘scare stories’ about old streets being built and developed on (to provide ‘split-level shopping’, for instance), but by and large those ‘fields and farms’ remain, for city-dwellers like Larkin himself (he was living in Hull when he wrote ‘Going, Going’) could escape to, and enjoy, by getting in the car and driving out to