Dockery and Son

Dockery and Son

Themes: Youth and age, the fleeting nature of time, relationships, isolation, parenthood.

• The title 'Dockery and Son' implies a business which is both familial and mundane whilst also acting as a status symbol. It is inevitable that the middle-aged protagonist should compare their life to that of others as we all do.
• Like many of Larkin's poems, it starts with a specific, real instance before moving to a more general contemplation. The persona here is a "visitant" to the "Dean" and has returned to the place of his youth.
• The idea of a person "junior" to  the speaker having a child at the University serves as a shock and a reminder of the passage of time, as do the "chimes" of the "bell".
• From the offset, a sombre mood is evoked by the words "death-suited". This suggests that Larkin believes death to be just around the corner or perhaps it is that Dockery has died and the death-suit is an actual mourning suit, as supported by the past reference "was". It could even convey the rupture of the past and the withdrawal of events into memories.
• Returning to the University, there is a sense of emptiness and alienation. The speaker has 'outgrown' his miscreant days of the past, during which days were spent giving "our version" of the drunk "incidents last night.
• Enjambment serves to emphasise the disconnection from the past and how life flies by, whether you want it to or not.
• Passage of time: The caesura after "locked" provides an ominous pause to emphasise that the speaker's past is closed off to him and cannot be revisited. Youth cannot be reclaimed and the persona feels disconnected from his former life as a student.
• The railway lines are symbolic of the fact that human lives may interweave and diverge but will ultimately, terminate.
• Isolation: Larkin is closed off and "ignored" by the rest of the world. The alliteration of "canal and clouds and colleges" connects every aspect of life to imply that it is all interchangeable and blurs into one. Larkin's unwillingness to obey social conventions has made him an outsider and he believes that all of life is monotonous.
• "How much...How little..."- Larkin wonders whether Dockery has improved his life, making Larkin's life somehow lesser, however, there is uncertainty as to how to voice this as Larkin does not want to appear to pine for parenthood.
• The "unhindered" moon above is eternal, thus serveing to highlight the transiency of human life and its insignificance in relation to nature. The "awful pie" is also representative of the disparaging view that Larkin held towards mass-produced consumer-driven urban life.
• "To have no son, no wife, no house or land still seemed quite natural" and it itself, summarises Larkin's life. The repetition of "no" stresses the emptiness and hollowness as Larkin realises "how much had gone of life"-life has flown by without his knowing.
• Relationships: Yet, whilst the speaker still has nothing, somehow, Dockery appeared to know what he wanted at such a young age whilst others lacked direction.
• Larkin satirises the "innate assumption" that "adding meant increase" and replaces the idea with that of "dilution". He is convinced that society imposes rules concerning what people should want and that parenthood doesn't actually bring comfort but the reduction of life. Your life is replaced by your child's; your hopes and wants abandoned to create a family- parenthood is restricting and permanent.
• In the eyes of Larkin, the only certainty in life is death- "life is first boredom, then death". People see what little they truly have so late on and only age brings this recognition.
• "Whether or not we use it, it goes"- the manner in which one chooses to live their life is both unimportant and uncontrollable. Regardless of how we use our lives, we are all headed to the same point-the "end of age" (death). Larkin highly criticises the structure of life e.g. marriage, birth then death yet creates a more mundane life than those he has scorned.

Connections to other poems

• Whitsun Weddings- relationships, pressure to follow social conventions, change
• Ambulances-the inevitability of death

Academic links:http://www.allinfo.org.uk/levelup/dockery.htm