POETRY MAKES SOMETHING STRANGE, TAKES YOU

BEYOND THE ORDINARY.

It can be argued that Duffy adheres to this title interpretation far more than Larkin. In comparing The
Good Teachers and Sunny Prestatyn, although both present a strange power balance in relationships
between people, Larkin does this to present an ordinary viewpoint of the 1950s, while Duffy does this to
challenge that of her era. Furthermore, in comparing Like Earning A Living and Toads Revisited, it
becomes even more apparent the contrast between them. Larkin clearly finds more contentment in the
ordinary around him, disdaining those seeking the strange, whereas Duffy portrays her dissatisfaction and
wishes to take her surroundings beyond the ordinary.
It can be interpreted that both Larkin and Duffy adhere to the titles interpretation in their inverting of the
ordinary in the relationships between people, especially the power balance. In The Good Teachers, Duffy
focuses on the education system: she presents the students as having power over the teachers, a strange
presentation of the student-teacher relationship in an environment where teachers were expected to
suppress students. Similarly, in Sunny Prestatyn, Larkin presents the utter brutality of the power men have
over the advertised woman, again a strange contrast to the jovial, innocent mood of the advertisements of
the period. Both poets use powerful imagery to emphasise this power: Duffys persona is making a
ghost of her teacher in the photograph by breathing on her, while Larkins female in the advertisement is
more violently left with a great transverse tear. Although on the one hand, Duffys persona could be
interpreted as desiring to forget the teacher, of wishing her dead as the supernatural imagery of a ghost
suggests, the power of the imagery in fact gives the persona a sense of individuality and strength, as she
has this ability to obscure the teachers image Duffy almost portrays a sense of mockery in the personas
power of life and death over the teacher. Duffy has always expressed a belief in the power and
intelligence of children, saying that children are the real living voice, having a real understanding of
this after growing up in an environment of a rigid Catholic education where they were viewed as needing
to be disciplined and suppressed. Similarly, Larkin emphasises the extent of the power the men have over
the image of the woman in the advertisement, in spite of an England which on the surface was still
attempting to retain its image of chivalry after the war. Harrison argues that Larkin Larkin expressed the
idea that he wanted to write the 'truth' in his poetry, and this is particularly prominent in the language he
uses. The tear suggests an irreparable violent destruction to the woman, and the fact that it is
transverse suggests it is total, across her entire being, with the alliteration of the t drawing attention to
this brutality. In the wake of the second war, after the brutality witnessed, ideas about masculinity and
behaviour towards women were changing. The past idea of being the gentleman, inherited from the 19th
century aristocratic society, with certain proper codes of behaviour class criticised and a more
modern and less regulated realism preferred, the truth as Harrison puts it, where men could treat
women with the brutality they desired without hypocrisy. So both poets present relationships which are
strange in comparison to the image of them society perpetuates. However, there is a key difference. Duffy
adheres to the titles interpretation in that she presents agency and power in the child that would have
been considered strange by any standard, she truly goes beyond the ordinary, whilst Larkins presentation
in the brutality in which the woman is viewed, although unacknowledged by society, was the true

ordinary reality in which the public viewed women. Although modern audiences would find this
questionable, with their sympathies lying with the harm done to women, Larkins intention was probably
to justify this behaviour by presenting an injustice in the false image of the woman presented to them. In
fact, the complete power Duffys female persona has only emphasises the lack of agency the woman in
Larkins advertisement has in the male exploitation of her.
Furthermore, it can also be argued that both poets adhere to the titles interpretation through their antithesis
between the image of purity society wishes to perpetuate and the ordinary imperfections of people. Duffy
describes the teachers as wearing long, brown skirts, their modest attire implying the moral goodness of the
Catholic Church, whilst Larkin describes the poster woman in Sunny Prestatyn as wearing white satin, using
the antithesis between the moral purity of the white colour and the sexual impure connotations of the satin
to emphasise the disparity between pinnacle of innocence and perfection - which the advert attempts to
persuade the audience is ordinary - and true ordinary reality. Similarly, Duffy juxtaposes the role the teachers
are perpetuating is ordinary with the reality of their personalities. She describes that the teachers swish
whilst they walk; the onomatopoeia and sibilance used here implies an aura of menace, echoing the swish of a
cane, as well as this suggesting an ostentatious nature which contrasts to the image of demureness portrayed
by their clothing - they are in fact complicit in the portrayal of a false image. Larkin also demonstrates this
idea in Sunny Prestatyn when he describes the woman in the poster as laughing, as if enjoying deceiving
those viewing her into believing an impossible ideal. He is contrasting this idealised image of a poster woman
with the ordinary reality of the way in which she is viewed by men: Larkins repetition of submissive verb
choices in describing the woman, such as using the verb kneeling suggests her complete sexualisation by
the men, with the use of present participle emphasising the continuous and inevitable nature of this. In this
way, both Duffy and Larkin contrast the image of people society wishes to perpetuate with the real ordinary
way in which they are viewed. However, Duffy complies more with the titles interpretation in that she takes
the ordinary perception of the teachers and makes it strange, undesirable, to prove how distasteful it is, whilst
in contrast Larkin expresses the perception of women in a blunt, crude way that would have been considered
strange in a sexually suppressed 1950s, to emphasise an ordinary viewpoint.
However, it can be argued there is far more of a contrast between the poets presentations of the ordinary
when comparing Duffys Like Earning A Living and Larkins Toads Revisited. Duffy seems to be lamenting
the lack of strange in ordinary life, wishing for it to be taken beyond as the title interpretation describes,
whilst Larkin is entirely the opposite, celebrating everyday ordinary life. For example, both use animalistic
imagery to these different effects: Duffys persona desperately asks Whats an elephant like?, trying to instil
strangeness into an otherwise ordinarily mundane setting, whilst in contrast Larkin mocks those who attempt
to escape from the ordinary as hare-eyed clerks. The image of an elephant which Duffy uses is often an
allegory for creativity, for intelligence and memory, which is contrasted sharply with the lack of it the students
in the classroom, as the question receives no answer. An alternative interpretation of this is that Duffy
deliberately uses a foreign, exotic image in order to emphasise the impossibility of the students connecting
with the strangeness and creativity the elephant symbolises, with the use of rhetorical question being mocking,
rather than desperate. But in both interpretations, Duffy is clearly portraying a desire for more strangeness and
is criticising the ordinary, conformist nature of the students in the lesson. Perhaps her study of philosophy
influences this worldview, as this would have taught her to question and seek beyond her surroundings.
Larkin, in contrast, describes those like Duffys persona, those trying to avoid the ordinary as hare-eyed, the
image of a hare suggesting ridiculous restlessness, the compound adjective emphasising this as it suggests
them being so vulnerable and fatigued from needless dissatisfaction that it shows in their eyes there is air of
mockery and pantomime surrounding his description of them. Larkin shows strong influences from Hardy

here, in believing the source of poetry to be ones own life experiences, rather than to exhibit his learning or
his fine taste, believing that too much of the strange would alienate the public he was writing for. In this way,
Duffy adheres to the titles interpretation in wanting make her surroundings more strange, whereas Larkin
revels in the ordinary around him.
Furthermore, both Larkin and Duffy in these poems describe the ordinary in their surroundings, yet again
there is a contrast: Duffy surrounds them with negativity whilst Larkin claims them in familiarity. The
difference in their language techniques illustrates this contrast. Duffy in Like Earning A Living describes
Video. Big Mac. Lager. Lager.: using monosyllabic sentences to demonstrate her numbness and disdain for
these ordinary mundane objects in her surroundings that the public seems so preoccupied with, emphasising
the lack of eloquence and strangeness in the bluntness of the sentences. Perhaps the repetition of Lager as
the verse progresses stresses the negativity around this monotony as Duffys persona believes the public must
drink to suppress their unfulfilment in their ordinary surroundings. In contrast, Larkin decides to reclaim his
ordinary surroundings in Toads Revisited, he states: Give me my in-tray//my loaf-haired secretary. The
compound adjectives he uses to describe these objects give them an air of ridiculousness, of silliness: he is
aware of their ordinary unexciting nature, yet the mockery is decidedly fond. Edwards argues that Larkin is
so synonymous with loneliness, scepticism and regret, perhaps drawing on his other poems that do often
demonstrate a wish for a higher meaning, as well as discontentment and scepticism at his ordinary
surroundings. In fact, Toads Revisited is a response to a previous poem, Toads, which illustrated the values
that Edwards described: a dislike for his the drudge of his work, lamenting the utter mundane ordinary nature
of it, an attitude very similar to Duffys in Like Earning A Living. However, after his years of being a Hull
Librarian and lamenting the mundane nature of his work, perhaps Larkin began to find reconciliation in his
daily life. He took care in his work, making Hull the first library in England to install a GEAC system, as well
as falling in love with several of his colleagues. His repetition of the personal pronoun my in this line
suggests this passiveness and fondness of his surroundings, although he recognises their mundane nature, they
are still his, and he celebrates it, especially by using the imperative give. In this way, perhaps Edwards is
not entirely correct in his interpretation of Larkin, as in Toads Revisited he seems to have found comfort in the
ordinary nature of his life, contrary to the title interpretation. Duffy adheres far more to it in her lamentation
and criticism of the ordinary around her. Perhaps comparing her to Larkin illuminates Duffys reasons for
seeking strangeness, something beyond the ordinary, as she may have a fear of becoming satisfied with it, as
Larkin has. It raises the debate of whether it is better to find fulfilment in the mundane, or to seek something
beyond the ordinary, no matter the dissatisfaction caused.
In conclusion, although they share similarities in their presentation of attitudes and ideas strange to those
perpetuated by the societies in which they live, overall Duffy and Larkin have opposite attitudes to the
ordinary. The reason for this contrast lies decidedly in their ideas about poetry in general. Larkin believes in
poetry about people who have done nothing spectacular presented not with self-pity or despair or
romanticism, and so would have believed in engaging his readers by not alienating them with romanticism,
either by presenting ordinary cruelty in Sunny Prestatyn or finding fulfilment in the ordinary in Toads
Revisited. In contrast, Duffy believes that poetry is the music of being human in spite of it often being
strange, and that it is a way of celebrating life by connecting with ideas beyond the ordinary, as the title
interpretation argues.