Dockery and Son - Larkin

"Dockery and Son" is another poem by Larkin and is about the persona returning back to university and discovering that time has drastically changed since he was there. This poem is a good example of stating that you are limited by your own actions and that everything in life can go by quickly. From the first two stanzas we see the description of the university and at the end of the second stanza we see the shock the persona has as he realises that his old friend from university has his own son. With this we begin to see a sudden change of tone within the persona as we continue through the stanzas. The third stanza seems as though it is like a diary entry with how he simply explains his journey home with falling asleep and eating "an awful pie". We then begin to get some imagery from Larkins poem with the quote, "the ranged joining and parting lines reflect a strong unhindered moon" This quotation implies to the readers of a metaphor that Larkin has used to portray the many choices we have within our lives. The tracks are constantly changing, like our decisions and options that we are provided with. As we continue through to the next stanza the persona begins to realise that he is now a middle aged man and no longer the young man that studied at university like he once was.Through this stanza we also see him compare himself to Dockery and how different he is from the others by the quote "how much had gone of life, how widely from the others." As we continue to the next stanza we see that he has made his description much deeper than before for most of this stanza suggests to us readers that having children can be a positive and negative in our lives. To some it could be a way to increase and make things better for the world we live in, but for others it seems to weaken them. This would also suggest that people, like Larkin, feel like they lose their power and freedom when they have children whilst people that find it to be a positive make it seem like a way to become whole and complete. This is a key theme of the perspective of children as is the theme of the journey itself. Both of these themes are important as the stanzas continue towards the end. From the end of this stanza and continuing to the next we see that there is no free will and suggests that the choices we make are never based on free will no matter how much we belief them to be. There is also the occuring thought that after every decision we make we can not go back to where we were before since it is in the past. Through the last stanza we are given deep description on how everything is just a big mystery towards us and we are constantly making choices that we are never certain of or have full power over. There is also an epiphany within this poem too which tells us that life goes quickly and that the choices you make in life determine what will happen to you. From Larkins poem we see alot of religious images and themes linking towards his words and we begin to see that Larkin does this in this poem to allow us to choose whether it is a good or bad point. Even though he is not religious himself, he places this into his poem to allow his readers to get a better sense of what is occuring.