The Whitsun Weddings

                                             
                                  The Whitsun Weddings

• The Whitsun weddings is a judgemental and satirical poem following the train journey of the first person-speaker. 

• Whitsun is the seventh Sunday of Easter (a bank holiday) and a time during which it is traditional to get married so as to take advantage of the early summer bank holiday.
• As the speaker continues on his journey, more and more newly-weds board the train and interrupt his peaceful rest.
• The main themes of this poem could be considered to be isolation, modern life and change.
• The first stanza of the poem serves to highlight the pessimistic view of the lone traveler as the train is described as "three-quarters-empty", thus emphasising the speaker's solitary nature. However, as the train pulls away from the station, the sensation of the city's hurrying bustle drops away, with the "river's level drifting breadth" creating an image of continuity between sky, city and water. 
• Once the train nears the urban sprawl once again, the fantasy of the pastoral landscape jars with the "floatings of industrial froth" which blight nature and the "new and nondescript" housing. This use of alliteration connects the two words to suggest that if something is new, it is also nondescript- a criticism of modern life and its featureless nature. These first stanzas appeal also to our senses as the landscape that is passed by is described in relation to sight, sound and the smell of the "fish-dock".
• The wedding parties themselves are hugely criticised by Larkin as too loud and individual figures are turned into 'types'-"grinning and pomaded, girls in parodies of fashion", "fathers with broad belts", "mothers loud and fat". Larkin is oddly interested in these parties but is hugely negative of them, perhaps because he is left out or because he disapproves of their social class and their attempts to dress up. People are grotesquely reduced to "perms" and "nylon gloves"- laughable and disparaging descriptions.
• As each of these couples join the train, they leave guests behind to discuss their "happy funeral"- a juxtaposition of words to show the mixture of emotions felt by the couples.. Larkin views wedding as the ceremonial end of things due to the loss of freedom to meet new people and with each wedding party he sees, he becomes convinced that they are all the same- "a dozen weddings".
• Every person aboard the train becomes bound in some way to one another by the journey; just as sky and water and Lincolnshire meet along the visual line of the river, so all the Whitsun weddings meet along the train-line. However, each person is changed by the experience and is "loosed" into the outside world with a different outlook. The "arrow-shower" that becomes rain is a reference to Cupid's arrow being shot off, only to come down again, thus ending with the idea that love will inevitably lead to neglect and disappointment and will be washed away.
• Some could interpret this poem as a bitter traveler's criticisms of other happy couples because of his lack of human company, however, it could also represent a transition/ journey that many have to take together- a test of humanity and its relationships which so often fail yet start out with so much enthusiasm.
• The rhyming scheme of the poem (A,B,A,B,C,D,E,C,D,E) could also represent the rhythm of the train as it moves along its preordained track.
• Academic criticism/Interpretations: http://www.bachelorandmaster.com/britishandamericanpoetry/whitsun-weddings.html