This poem is about how seeing an ambulance transporting a sick person can remind us of our own mortality. Ambulances privately carry away those whose lives may be drawing to a close. When confronted with death, we realize how insignificant our daily lives are and that death ultimately resolves the struggle of existence. The ambulance journey symbolizes life ending, as what defined the person loosens and they are taken far from loved ones, making what is left of their life distant to observers.

1. Ambulances
Philip Larkin

2. Closed like confessionals,

3. they thread
Loud noons of cities,

4. giving back
None of the glances they absorb.

5. Light glossy grey, arms on a plaque

6. They come to rest at any kerb:
All streets are visited in time.

7. Then children strewn on steps or
road,
Or women coming from the shops
Past smells of different dinners,

8. ,see
A wild white face that overtops
red stretcher blankets momently
As it is carried in and stowed,

9. And sense the solving emptiness
That lies under all we do,

10. And for a second get it whole,
So permanent and blank and true.

11. The fastened doors recede. Poor
soul,
They whisper at their own distress;

12. For borne away in deadened air
May go the sudden shut of loss
Round something nearly at an end,

13. And what cohered in it across
The years, the unique random blend
Of families and fashions , there
At last begin to loosen,

14. Far
from the exchange of love to lie
Unreachable inside a room

15. The traffic parts to let go by
Brings closer what is left to come,
And dulls to distance all we are

16. So what is this poem about
then?
How when we see an ambulance taking someone
away to hospital, we are reminded of our own
mortality and often feel more sorry for ourselves than
for the sick person.
What happens in an ambulance is very private and
unseen (like a confessional) and people are curious –
they come to stare.
The ambulance journey could symbolize life drawing
to a close.
When we are reminded of our own mortality, we
realise how insignificant we are and how unimportant
our daily lives really are.

17. Death in this poem
Death is very important in this poem – it
lies below the surface of our lives and
comes at the end of our lives. In that
sense, death is the solution – it is the
solving emptiness. Death is the
solution to life.
Death is characterised as being empty,
permanent, blank and true.

18. Philip Larkin (1922 – 1985)
•Born in Coventry and educated at Oxford.
•Worked as a Librarian.
•Shared his life with Monica Jones, English lecturer, for
38 years.
•Wicked sense of humour
•By all acounts a difficult and not very likeable
personality.

19. Form of the poem
Structure – 5 6-line stanzas
Rhyme scheme – a,b,c,b,c,a
Rhythm – flowing
Mood - sombre
Poetic techniques: enjambement,
similes, personification, contrasts

20. This poem superbly juxtaposes the meaning of death with the
pragmatics of life. Life, in all its febrile practicality ('all we
are') is blurred into a 'distance' when we are confronted with the
ultimate reality of death. For Larkin, death is a 'solving
emptiness' that comes to take away and RESOLVE the
seemingly endless struggle of existence ('all we do') . Larkin
also points to what Vernon Scannell called 'the huge
inevitability of death' when he states that 'all streets in time are
visited'. There is a sense that we cannot escape death (a major
Larkinian theme) but simultaneously it does come as a
RESOLUTION, albeit a frightening and mysterious one.

21. For Larkin, life is that 'unique blend of families and
fashions' which is suddenly terminated, not just by
physical death, but by the realisation of it, as we are
'borne away' in an ambulance. At this point, we realise
that (in Shakespeare's parlance) this 'tale told by an
idiot...full of sound and fury' is about to end. Perhaps
the central message of this poem is to engage in a
stoical attitude to life because, in the end, all its
convoluted intricacies are going to dissipate ('loosen')
and we are left in 'deadened air', distanced from love
and the many aspects of life which enabled us to
maintain a grip on it.
Andrew Felton BA (Hons) , MA