How Does Larkin Presents the Themes of Reality and Illusion in Essential Beauty Compared to the Way in Which Abse Presents These Theme in His Poetry

1168 Words5 Pages
Larkin highlights the absurdities of the advertisements on show in ‘Essential Beauty’, which offer apparatus that in actuality, are never as utopian in the harsh realities of this world, as described by Larkin presenting the extravagant adverts which appealed to the target audience by captivating and manipulating them in order that they should purchase the products on offer. Dannie Abse uses his poem, ‘Welsh Valley Cinema’, to reveal how the audience in the cinema were enticed by the films and went to the cinema in an attempt to escape their mundane lives; however they have the struggles of returning back to reality after their sensational experience. The poem begins in stanza 1 by describing ‘frames as large as rooms’ and ‘block the ends of streets with giant loaves’, these ideas link in with the overpowering and dominant vibe that the adverts gave off, since they were so overshadowing that they simply dominate the outdoors as if to emphasise the power of advertising, however what is offered is just a picture of illusion. A further implication to how the adverts prevailed the outdoors is ‘Screen graves with custard’, where people are declared to forget about the difficulties of life such as death and are instead granted ‘custard’, yet the consumers should not be so wound up in the fantasy world of adverts where everything is perfect and should be more worried what is beyond the advertisement and what is right in front of them, which is the truth of real life struggles. Larkin is perhaps using this to rebuke the attitude many had towards the advertisements that were suspected to be genuinely tempting, though in reality the temptations were glorified and therefore when obtained were little like what the consumers expected. Dannie Abse’s poem ‘Welsh Valley Cinema’ is similar to Larkin’s representation of how people want to forget all about the real world and

More about How Does Larkin Presents the Themes of Reality and Illusion in Essential Beauty Compared to the Way in Which Abse Presents These Theme in His Poetry

Open Document