Dockery and Son

Analysis of Dockery and Son by Philip Larkin

- 'Dockery and Son' - a status symbol that Larkin will never have, envious

- Changes the subject in the first stanza to avoid talking about Dockery - talks about his own memories of the crazy nights they would have here

- 'I try the door where I used to live: Locked' - he can't reclaim his youth, he's been locked out of his past.

- 'I catch my train, ignored' - emphasises his lack of family to miss him if he's gone

- 'But Dockery, good Lord' - shock suddenly hits him of how different his life is to Dockery's, how much he has achieved in the time that has passed

- 'Well, it just shows how much... How little... Yawning' - even while thinking about how much time he has lost, he is wasting more time sleeping

- 'To have no son, no wife, no house or land' - has nothing to show for twenty years, hasn't accomplished anything

- 'a numbness registered the shock of finding out how much had gone of life' - hadn't realised how quickly life was passing, how much time he had wasted

- 'how convinced he was he should be added to! Why did he think adding meant increase? To me it meant dilution' - makes Dockery sound bigheaded, thinking the world needs another one of him. You're really spreading yourself out across your children, there'll be none of you left if you keep doing it.

- 'They're more a style our lives bring with them: habit for a while, Suddenly they harden into all we've got' - people don't really want kids at first, they just follow the system/ routine, then when you get older they're all you care about and all that matters in life (which is kinda sad)

- 'They rear like sand clouds' - fast, uncontrollable, unpredictable

- 'Whether or not we use it, it goes' - life is going by at the same speed no matter if you're not doing anything, so you might as well make the most of it and get everything you can out of it.