The poem seems to express Larkin’s thoughts as he views the room that was once rented by Mr Bleaney. He can see that Mr Bleaney lead a lonely life, at least for the time that he rented this room, and as he sees this as a reflection of his own life, he is unable to criticise it.
The main themes expressed in the poem are loneliness and the shallowness of human life. The room, as it is described by Larkin, is very monotonous and boring, with no exciting features. The curtains are “thin and frayed” and the bed is “fusty”, evoking the idea of decay and death, and of course it is in this room where Mr Bleaney died. The landlord refers to his death as “they moved him”, implying that he died in the “fusty bed”. The indifferent language used by the landlord suggests that he does not care for the ending of Bleaney’s life, reinforcing the theme of the loneliness in Mr Bleaney’s life and the shallowness of other people. This also suggests that his life was inconsequential to the other people around him.
It is understood that Mr Bleaney had no possessions because he rented a room that has “no room for books or bags”. This enforces the opinion that his life is worthless and insignificant. This is echoed in the final stanza, where Larkin suggests “that how we live measures our own nature”. He believes that the lack of possessions in Mr Bleaney’s life is a direct measure of his life amounting to very little, because he is alone and poor. But he does not mock Mr Bleaney or look down on him because he is very aware that he is in fact living a life of paralleled existence to that of Mr Bleaney. They have ended up renting the same room and therefore suggesting that both men have very little, if any possessions.
The Essay on Poem: “Mr. Bleaney” by Philip Larkin
... centres around the life of one character, Mr Bleaney. The poem focuses on the house in which Mr Bleaney had a rented room for a ... for a number of years. The room has Mr Bleaney stamped all over it: his few possessions (a souvenir plate and ashtray), still ... fits Mr Bleaney perfectly. The last stanza bears the moral from Philip Larkin, stating that what we do with our lives reflects our ...
As he looks out of what was Mr Bleaney’s window, he seems very unimpressed with the surrounding area. All he can see is “a strip of building land” suggesting that he is not looking at a landscape worthy enough of being depicted in an oil painting. It is “tussocky, littered”, meaning that the grass and vegetation is growing in clumps scattered over the strip of land. He also dislikes the “frigid wind”, and the unfriendly way that it is “tousling the clouds”. He is implying that the wind is throwing the clouds around without a care for them in a similar manner to the way that Mr Bleaney was removed from the room after his death. It makes the area seem extremely unwelcoming.
The final two stanzas suggest that Mr Bleaney knew that he could not get anything better than this dreary room and lonely existence, and that all he’d have to show for his life is “one hired box”. But this is just Larkin speculating about what he thinks Mr Bleaney would have thought, with the “I don’t know” at the end correctly recognizing that one man cannot know another man’s thoughts. He may know his habits like “what time he came down, his preference for sauce over gravy” but he doesn’t know his thoughts. I believe that this is his opinion of his own life, and that he is trying to comfort himself by saying that Mr Bleaney thought this too. They have lead almost parallel lives – rented the same room, slept in the same “fusty” bed, stubbed their fags “on the same saucer-souvenir”, so why wouldn’t they have the same thoughts?
Larkin’s use of form also reinstates the themes of solitude and the pointlessness of both Larkin’s and Mr Bleaney’s lives. The monotonous ABAB rhyme scheme and the equally quatrained stanzas reflect the boring predictability of the two men’s lives. The enjambment between these quatrains shows the continuing dullness of Mr Bleaney’s life, and even though his life had no momentum, the enjambment provides the poem with momentum. The fifth stanza ends with a full stop, resulting in a double pause that allows Larkin to change the tone of the poem. He ends the next line with “frigid wind”, enabling him to enforce a pessimistic tone as both of these words have negative connotations. There are no metaphors or similes in the poem, and this lack of creative inspiration mirrors the pointless, boring lives lead by Larkin and Mr Bleaney.
The Essay on Examine The Ways In Which Larkin’s Poems Explore The Gap Between Romantic Yearning And Disillusioned Pragmatism
Examine the ways in which Larkin’s poems explore the gap between romantic yearning and disillusioned pragmatism As a poet who wrote during the post war period during the 1950’s & 1960’s; Philip Larkin’ poetry reflected the philosophy of many individuals in Britain; as it was beginning to be re-built physically and metaphorically. It was an emergence of a new Britain; as this particular era was ...
I think that Mr Bleaney is a poetic persona that Larkin has used to reveal his own feelings about the incompetence of his life, allowing him to express his own view of the loneliness and the shallowness of human life.
