Essential Beauty - Larkin

From reading this poem we are able to see that it is idealy about the world of advertising and how it is placed towards us. From the first stanza we get the impression that our life should be like the advertisements with the phrase, "Of how life should be". From this we are informed that we should live like this due to the modal word and is a necessity. From various words such as, "giant", "cover" and "block" we get a negative perspective from these adverts. From the word "giant" we see that it is overwhelming and dominant to the audience. From "cover" we see that we are hidden or shut up from reality and have these adverts to overwhelm us and confuse us. Finally from "block" we also see this obscuring of the real world to have occured. This first stanza is full of colour and is portrayed with the hints of familiar food adverts that we are still aware of today such as Hovis bread and Birds custard. As we continue through this stanza we get the phrase, "High above the gutter A silver knife sinks into golden butter". From this we see the appearance of class and how the working and upper class are stated in this poem. This is a hyperbole which presents the thoughts of being excessive and artificial and in reality what ever class you are from, all of them are within the gutter for these advertisements confuse them of what is real and what is fake. We also get the notion of an illusion occuring in this poem due to how he explains the happy and loved families in this stanza. From this we see that this is how we are all meant to appear and is a key imagery throughout the poem.
As we move to the next stanza we then see the notion of being blinded from the truth being shown with key words and phrases. From "Pure coldness to our live imperfect eyes" we see that we are unable to see clearly and our judgement to be foggy. The advertisement has clouded our minds and we do not know what reality is any more. It feels inadequate to us and unrealistic.There is also the thought of there being no emotion, love or compasion from this phrase informing us that this is not reality these people are seeing. As we continue through this poem we then see that all these things that are being advertised are taking effect on the people and we see pentioners paying more for cups of tea and people smoking and not realising the effect this has upon them. From the words, "Granny Graveclothes' Tea" we see that this appears negative and as though it is preparing you for death. The quote of "dying smokers" shows us the long term effect smoking has upon people which is not shown on advertisements. Smokers are really killing themselves without knowing they are due to these adverts informing us that they are really lying to everyone in society. From the final line in the stanza stating, "Smiling, and recognising, and going dark" that really we are not aware and do not realise was is really occuring until we have died and making it seem too late. There are also many contrasts within this poem such as the real family and the fake family, the clarity change from each stanza and also the contrast to youth and age. From all these we see that Larkin is portraying to us that really we are being lied to everyday without even becoming aware until it is too late to do anything about it.