Self's the Man - Larkin

Another one of Larkins relationship poems is Self's the Man which implies to us readers a view of a selfish persona telling us how married life is for Arnold. From this poem we see a soft, simple and upbeat rhyme which is different to the various other poems I have read so far from Larkin, for example, Here and The Whitsun Weddings. This limic poem informs the readers that the persona is joking but we begin to wonder how much we can take as being serious and how much is a joke as we continue through the poem. The persona is portrayed as being selfish whilst Arnold is placed as being a far better man than what the persona is. As we listen to the persona go on in the stanzas we first get the impression of him making Arnold seem lonely and desperate to get into marriage from the first stanza. But as we continue through the stanzas we begin to feel sorry for the character for he has little time to himself and to be free. This is also shown by the persona with the phrase, "He has no time at all". Later on however we see a change in the persona's words as he begins to use questions and talks directly to the reader with the stanza, "But wait, not do fast: Is there such a contrast? He was out for his own ends Not just pleasing his friends;" From this stanza the audience is able to see clearly that the persona is not as selfish as he is made to seem. Arnold had a choice in becoming married and had chosen it far too quickly and the persona is merely suggesting to the audience that we should not take pity on him for it was his own free will. We then begin to think why we should truly feel sorry for Arnold for he has brought this upon himself and is the persona really as selfish as he has been made out with not taking on the role as husband, partner, provider and father. From this we see that there is rethinking of marriage occuring in the poem and shows unselfishness cross the mind of the persona. From reading all the poem so far the audience is told that married life is boring, unsatisfying, stressful and as a whole being a living hell. Whilst having this opposite life like the persona, where you are free from marriage, you are alone, uncontrolled, at peace and is placed as heaven. Finally within the final stanzas we see from the line, "At knowing what I can stand!" implies to us readers that he is asking us why we should feel sorry for Arnold since he has made this decision to get married and he has made the wrong decision. This then finally comes to the point that what ever choices you make in life you should not moan about them like how the character Arnold did. Altogether we see that this poem has a repetitive rhyming scheme and is almost like an everyday routine within reality.