Ambulances

By Philip Larkins 
Closed like confessionals, they thread
Loud noons of cities, giving back
None of the glances they absorb.
Light glossy grey, arms on a plaque,
They come to rest at any kerb:
All streets in time are visited.

Then children strewn on steps or road,

Or women coming from the shops
Past smells of different dinners, see
A wild white face that overtops
Red stretcher-blankets momently
As it is carried in and stowed,

And sense the solving emptiness

That lies just under all we do,
And for a second get it whole,
So permanent and blank and true.
The fastened doors recede. Poor soul,
They whisper at their own distress;

For borne away in deadened air

May go the sudden shut of loss
Round something nearly at an end,
And what cohered in it across
The years, the unique random blend
Of families and fashions, there

At last begin to loosen. Far

From the exchange of love to lie
Unreachable insided a room
The trafic parts to let go by
Brings closer what is left to come,
And dulls to distance all we are.

- Bitter and realistic powm

- What sight of ambulance brings to our mind
 - Sense of mortality- we are always moving towards death, reality of life.
Futility of life- life wil all its joys and achievements has no value
- Mediation on chloseness of death, randomness and inevitablility
- One of the poems in whitsun weddings
- Five stanzas six line
- Rhymescheme and rhythm are regular- regularity of scene describing.

Ambulances closed like confessionals. Use of simile has religious connotations.

What does on inside is private and separate. Uses alliteration to emphasize his
point ;loud noons of cities decribe sound of ambulance as well to set scene.
Transferred epithet is a technique employed here and using metaphor thread to help
creat vivid image of movement of sound as ambulance goes by

1st stanza:
Ambulances symbolise death/ Closed and inscrutable ‘giving back none of the
glances they absorb’ like a corpse. Private, secretive, silent like confessionals.
They cause agitation in people who glance nervously at them hoping their time
doesn’t come. Randomness expressed by ;they come to rest at any kerb.
Inevitability expressed in all streets in time are visited.

2nd stanza:
contrast beween zest and energy of children strewn on reads, women…past smells
of different diners and horror of its opposite a wild white faced patient carried
away from flow of normality…

3rd stanza; reflective

moved to think death is common fate and has power to render life meaningless. All
busy concerns is filling time until deathtakes us away to empty nothingness.
Thought which we put out of our minds comes to us without any softening
theologu. As ambulance pulls away,people expressions of sympathy at patients
plight is also expression of common vulnerability towards sickness and death.

4th and 4th stanza: duing patient and sadness in her heart as she experiences sudden shut of loss,
round something nearly at the end. Sympathises with her fear, reflects on loss that death will bring
and destroy unique person. Tremendous isolation of being in an ambulance as she faces death.
Larkins deep sympathy. Take particular

- hollowness of death
- poet’s ease and conversational tone juxtaposed by eeeriness of reality
- highlights pragmatics of life and contrasts it with inevitability of death
- symbol of ambulance is death- closed confessionals- sitting in ambulance is like an open
book outpouring all the woes of life mentally and is ultimately resined to fate. Last resprt is
submitting to god. Closed as death posses no openings. Silence of death juxtaposed against
loud noons of cities. Noon is glaring and so are glares that ambulance recieves which it never
returns, apathetic to practicalities of light. Light glossy grey refers to colors of ambulance or
stages of life. Light- infant stage. Glossy- prime of youth. Grey- aged individual. How
individuals in all walks of life are vulnerable to death. Ambulance may come to rest on any
kerb, any person may be a victim. It may be children on steps or roads, ladies coming from
shops amongst smells of dinner. People consume food as basic prerequisite to life, here
smell of it lingers as death holds center stage. Bodies carried away to be stowed away like
the blankets. Color red signifying blood and white face add to gloomy nature of poem
- Solving emptiness stresses existential dilemma of man. His doings and achievements are
reduced to nihilism in confrontation with death. Reaffirm truth for a second as it dawns on
them. So permannent blank and true. Persistent reality- blank and hollowly secretive. As
amulance unfastens- people exclaim in sympathy but this sympathis is more than empathy
directed at themselves.
- Patient senses sudden shut of loss that death is around the corner. Death is portrayed as
universal phenomenon. Projects victims of deathas women. Woman apprehending
anavoidable fear. Individual tastes and differences no longer matter.
- Desolation, isolation, materialism reduced.
- Evidence of orfinary life to create truth that can be universally acknowledged. Everybody
looks at an ambulance when it is driving throught he streets it doesn’t look back at anyone
- Ambulance signifies illness. First two stanzas- vivid and realistic imagery. Fills spectators with
thought of death- percieve their own life coming to an end. Approach of death would mean
end to life of activity, depriving life of all its meaning.