The poet is moving into a room that was previously occupied by Mr Bleaney. Through observing the sparse furnishings, the poet draws conclusions about Bleaney's lonely and stagnant life. The room reflects Bleaney's isolation, as seen in the faded curtains and lack of personal possessions. By the end, the poet worries that he may be becoming like Bleaney over time, trapped in a solitary existence. The poem implies how our environments and circumstances shape our identities.

1. MR BLEANEY
Philip Larkin

2. CONTENT
The poet is lodging in a room that once belonged to a
man called Mr Bleaney. As he observes the bare
furnishings, he draws intimate conclusions about the
former lodger. Although he may not intend to, the
poet himself is very much like or perhaps turning into
Mr Bleaney.

3. CONTEXT
• Mr Bleaney was written in 1955
• We can infer that it is set in the Midlands (due to the
manufacturing slang used - “the Bodies”), which is where
Larkin grew up
• During the 40s there was a manufacturing boom in the
Midlands, which explains Bleaney’s employment in “the
Bodies”
• Despite this period of economic progression, Bleaney’s
situation remained bleak

4. SETTING
“the flowered curtains thin and frayed”
• Gives an image of decay and dinginess
• Mr Bleaney lived in squalor; he couldn’t afford to change his
generic curtains that “fall to within five inches of the
sill”
“no room for books or bags”
• Basic, no room for anything personal
• He looks out of the window every day to see “a strip of
building land”; he would have watched this development
while his own life remained stagnant

5. CHARACTERS

6. NARRATOR
!
• After the mundaneness of the initial stanza, the poet’s decision - “I’ll take it” - is almost
comical, and the first indicator that he is like Mr Bleaney
• The poet is familiar with Bleaney’s habits, even though he never knew him
• These assured conclusions could mean that he himself resembles how he would have
imagined Bleaney to be
• Maybe he fears the person he is turning into, so is projecting these dreaded characteristics
onto a fabricated persona - Mr Bleaney
• The narrator seems to know some intimate things about Bleaney’s life, such as that he visited
“his sister’s house in Stoke” - is he describing his own life, or making judgements, or
does he really know Bleaney?
“The first two thirds of the poem down to ‘but if ’ are concerned with
my uneasy feeling that I am becoming Mr Bleaney…The last third is
reassuring myself that I am not…yet there’s no doubt lingering too,
perhaps he hated it as much as I did” Philip Larkin

7. MR BLEANEY
• We never meet Mr Bleaney; we only know him through the imagination of the poet
• He lodged alone - we can infer that he didn’t own a house, nor many belongings, and didn’t have
immediate family
“telling himself that this was home”
• He has to convince himself that he belongs somewhere
• We don’t know why he has left the room, but he left with “one hired box”
• This could refer to a coffin that didn’t even belong to him, reinforcing his loneliness and lack of
possessions
• This could otherwise refer to the one box required to carry his belongings to his next destination
• We feel sorry for him, yet we do not know anything about him; he really only exists in Larkin’s
imagination
• He was a gambling man - is it right that we feel sorry for him? Perhaps he brought his deprivation
on himself

8. LITERARY TECHNIQUES

9. STRUCTURE and GRAMMAR
• The rhyme scheme is ABAB, but is punctuated by enjambment and
caesura
• The poet begins by talking about an individual’s life and concludes
with a general message about “how we live measures our own
nature
• Ignorance, An Arundel Tomb and Dockery and Son follow the same
structure as Mr Bleaney; they move from a specific situation to a
gradual generalisation
• There are seven stanzas, each consisting of exactly four lines of
similar length. This could reflect the monotony of Mr Bleaney’s life
and the universality of the final message

10. PATHETIC FALLACY
“the frigid wind tousling the clouds”
• a strong force is controlling the clouds, reflecting Mr Bleaney’s
own vulnerability to the pressures of the world
“till they moved him”
• Mr Bleaney is at the mercy of more powerful people, just like
the clouds blown about by the wind
• The dim lighting and chilling wind mirror how dead, cold and
depressing his life is

11. THE BOTTOM LINE
“How we live measures our own nature”
• This statement is paradoxical
• How we live indicates the kind of person we are but the kind of
person we are dictates how we live
• The universal application of this statement is clear from the first person plural
pronoun ‘we’
• Other people also influence us, just like Mr Bleaney influences Larkin
• Larkin spends most of the poem worrying that he is turning into Mr Bleaney
• Through following Bleaney’s way of living, perhaps this is the actual destiny of
his nature

12. THEMES

13. Loneliness and isolation
“No more to show than one
hired box”
• Larkin implies how lonely Mr
Bleaney is, yet he is choosing the
same life as him
• Others merely tolerate him; “The
Frinton folk who put him up”
• His only relationship is with his
landlady, who still refers to him
formally
• What is the definition of
home? Is it where we live,
or where we feel safe,
comfortable and loved?
• Perhaps Larkin can never
class this room as his home,
because it is irrevocably
associated with Mr Bleaney
Home

14. Freedom
• Mr Bleaney is at the mercy of
others
• He doesn’t have control over his
own situation, so is seemingly weak
• He has no power to change his
dilapidated location
• Perhaps Bleaney gambles to
achieve freedom from his dismal
life, yet his perpetual spending may
be enchaining him in a vicious
circle of poverty
• Mr Bleaney could have passed away
• The room is associated with Bleaney, yet
he is no longer there. This is a constant
reminder of absence and loss
• The flowers on the curtain seem to have
died, becoming “thin and frayed”,
perhaps due to neglect or unhappiness
• Bleaney’s already dismal life is further
shadowed by the collapse of the
manufacturing industry in the 70s
Death and loss

15. LINKS TO OTHER POEMS

16. Home is so Sad
• Bleaney’s home is only ever
described as a bleak place
• It is “shaped to the
comfort of the last to go”,
as Bleaney seems to remain in
his room despite having
physically left
• Home also “withers”, like
the now lifeless flowers on the
curtains in Bleaney’s room
• Theme of purpose
• Larkin reflects on how Dockery has a
son, and he himself has “nothing”
• We get the impression that Larkin is
happy alone and doesn’t want to be like
Dockery
• Mr Bleaney had “at his age…no
more to show than one hired box”
• Yet Larkin portrays this life negatively
• Why does he not want to be like
Dockery but also not like Bleaney?
Dockery and Son

17. Self’s the Man
!
• Like he does with Arnold,
the poet infers a lot about
Mr Bleaney’s habits and
life
• Larkin seems to not want
to be like Mr Bleaney, yet
we see from Self’s the Man
that he is proud that he
hasn’t got married
• What survives of Mr
Bleaney, sadly, is not
love
• His only legacy is a few
fantasies and a name
attached to a lodging
room
• Does this make his life
any less valid?
An Arundel Tomb

18. DEFINITIONS
• The Bodies - slang term for the car manufacturing
business in the Midlands
• Tussocky - clumped with dense patches of grass
• Four aways - people would predict the ‘four aways’ on
the football polls; it was a form of gambling
• Tousling - to ruffle, make untidy
• Sixty watt bulb - very dim, old fashioned light bulb

19. Listen to Philip Larkin read Mr Bleaney:
http://poetryarchive.org/poem/mr-bleaney