"Wants" - Philip Larkin

Hello friends,

During my graduation I studied a poem “Wants” by Philip Larkin.  I would like to share a small blog on this poem.

Philip Arthur Larkin (1922 –1985) was an English poet, novelist and 

librarian.

Beyond all this, the wish to be alone:

However the sky grows dark with invitation-cards

However we follow the printed directions of sex

However the family is photographed under the flag-staff -

Beyond all this, the wish to be alone.

Beneath it all, the desire for oblivion runs:

Despite the artful tensions of the calendar,

The life insurance, the tabled fertility rites,

The costly aversion of the eyes away from death -

Beneath it all, the desire for oblivion runs.

In this poem the poet states his wish “to be alone." The poet wishes to be freed from the responsibilities and hopes that society enforces upon him. He craves to be free of  "the sky grows dark with invitation-cards”; the social obligations of the society .He wishes to be free from "the printed directions of sex,"; the expectations that society has regarding the sexual behaviour of a man or a woman. He also wishes that he did not have to be "photographed under the flag" together with his family;  the responsibilities of one's country (the flag) and one's family.

In the second stanza, the poet goes even farther: he seems to desire to be free of the "burden" of life itself. He expresses a "desire for oblivion," or self-destruction.

Here poet discusses about the wishes or wants which are infinite. This circle of wants never gets over. One want leads to another. Throughout the poem, the poet discusses about the never-ending painful desires of human beings.

References:-

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Larkin#Poetic_style

https://allpoetry.com/poem/8495651-Wants-by-Philip-Larkin