Dockery and Son, Larkin

Dockery and Son

 Dockery and Son is a poem detailing Larkin’s persona thinking about the route his life has taken through revisiting old friends and colleges.

 The poem is written through monologue-style, with the persona losing track of though and diverting from topic and a consistent use of “…” throughout. He’s depressed, regretful and ashamed of his life, immediately explaining he’s “Death-suited, visitant,” perpetuating his own belief that he doesn’t belong at the college he once attended.

 He’s uninterested in what the speaker is saying, at first they inform him his old friend’s “son’s here now,” a child being a symbol of success to the protagonist, something he doesn’t have, and his mind starts to drift elsewhere. “’do you keep in touch with-’ Or remember how,” the information given to him allows his mind to begin churning through the achievements of his own life, comparing them to “Dockery and Son.”

 The title of this poem highlights the trigger that allows his mind to wander, deliberating whether he’s truly happy with what he’s done. It’s particularly business-like, symbolising the family-establishment his friend has set up and his admiration and jealously he holds against that. On the other hand, Dockery and Son being seen as a business-styled name can represent Larkin’s resentment over the commerce and business that is life, seeing having children and conforming to regular routine followed by most people, a running theme in Larkin’s work.

 The poem itself follows a traditional ABAB rhyming scheme, giving it a regular rhythm which pairs ironically with the glum undertone and depressing theme.

 Age ties in with the themes of life and death in this poem, from the offset Dean describing Dockery as Larkin’s “junior,” which sparks memories of his younger life – tying in words and phrases such as “used to” “remember” and “when I was 21.” The focus on time passing becomes a central subject for Dockery and Son, emphasising Larkin’s view on the lost time passed since he was at College, causing his thoughts to spread melancholy on his train ride home.

 The first stanza ends with enjambment, linking to the beginning of the next which deflated cuts off with “Locked.” It then goes on to explain his train journey, “ignored,” he says. The train seems to open up the world to him, making it become privy to question, with “Clouds and canals and colleges” which “subside” before him, the use of alliteration representing the passing time though on a small scale, and the slow build up eventually giving Larkin a lucid, sleepy state, “How much… how little… Yawning, I suppose.” As in The Whitsun Weddings, the train provides a sanctum place for Larkin to observe the outside world and see things go by, a symbol of passing time and journeying through life itself. Before he sleeps, the world is beautiful, relaxing; an abyss, a “lawn spreading dazzlingly wide,” but when he’s awoken, it’s “at the fumes and furnace glares of Sheffield,” the mention of England being a reminder of reality for our protagonist.

 As in the poem Ambulances, being on the train presents a feeling of distance from the outside world, just like the ambulance makes the outside world “unreachable,” representing a loss of connection from the outside world. The act of passing by everything he sees as wonderful, or beautiful, and being rudely awakened by the smells and spoils of Sheffield can symbolise his detachment from the wonderful things of life, or his own sense of inability to reach it.

 The final stanzas of the poem highlight Larkin’s realisation of his life passing him by, and how he’s stuck – “Locked.” – in his existence which he’s questioning profusely. 

 We get a strong sense of Larkin’s persona as he begins openly explaining his values – “To have no son, no wife, No house or land still seemed quite natural.” He’s conflicted, explaining the “numbness” which “registered the shock,” explaining his emptiness as a result of learning of Dockery’s son.

 We see a change of thought pattern throughout Dockery and Son, “and had been capable of… No, that’s not the difference,” which shows Larkin’s struggle to find meaning in his life, until he eventually concludes that his life shows more prosper than Dockery’s himself. “To me it was dilution,” he writes. His view has spiralled up and down until eventually becoming more content, though not completely. He still writes of the “only end of age,” meaning death, and uses the inevitability of death to justify his beliefs of children and business are a waste of time, the industrial “fumes” of Sheffield bearing people away from the admirable lawns and lands he passes by.