Take One Home for the Kiddies, Larkin

Take One Home for the Kiddies

 Take One Home for the Kiddies is one of Larkin’s shorter poems, and details childhood innocence as being a detrimental thing for people to not challenge.

 The rhyming scheme is ABAB, a simplistic style designed to symbolise childish minimalism. We get a feel of the representation Larkin attaches to the animals compared to human life. They're own way of living – “Shallow straw, in shadeless glass” “empty bowls,” “no dark, no dam, no earth no grass” – is pitiful and discontent, and what is usually shown as an exit for the animals’ miserable lives actually becomes a direct way to their “funerals.” Larkin suggests that there is no way out for the animals, and this can be linked to a hierarchical representation of society.

 The children, with nothing much to lose by the deaths of the meaningless pets, can take and “keep” what they want, just through asking. They have power although they have not earned it, perhaps an inclination into Larkin’s dislike of children, or perhaps a representation of a higher class of living, whilst the animals are the lower class, with “empty bowls,” and a constant focus of their lack of resources, the word “no” being repeated 4 times in one line.

 In a sadistic manner, Larkin uses the words “living toys” to describe the relationship between the animals and the children. Pets are supposed to be ‘apart of the family,’ and are bought, generally, to be loved and bring enjoyment. In Take One Home for the Kiddies, Larkin presents the children as viewing the animals as discarded objects, fun for a moment and boring the next, and mocks this point of view through the light-hearted tone of the language and rhythm of the poem. Whilst in a lot of his other work, he pays delicate attention to smaller things and descriptions, here he takes a more casual, humorous look on the situations at hand in order to highlight and ridicule the negligence that children possess due to what would otherwise be described as their ‘innocent ignorance.’

 The fact that the children are getting their “living toys” from a woman pairs two ‘characters’ Larkin generally represents as being less intelligent to the protagonists.

 Despite this, however, this poem can be an example of Larkin’s more caring personality towards animals, an insight of the same connection he has with nature.