Study Guide by Arpita Karwa

Whitsun Wedding by Philip Larkin

The Whitsun Weddings is written by Philip Larkin.

The poet begins by telling the readers that it was a Whitsun Saturday and he left late. The sun
was shining bright and his train which was empty left at 1:20. It was so hot that even the seat
cushions were hot, the windows were opened to manage the heat and everything seemed to be
moving very slowly. He looked out the window and saw the backside of houses, the reflection
of windshields and he could also smell the fish-dock. The train was riding beside the vast,
motionless and slow river, which met the sky along the Lincolnshire countryside.

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The train kept going through the summer afternoon and travelled south as well as inland. On
the way, the train moved along huge farms with cows whose shadows seem to be small under the gigantic sun and canals
filled with industrial waste. The poet saw a greenhouse and hedges going up and dipping down. The carriage carried an

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awful smell from the cloth but the fragrance of grass often overpowered it. Towns came back again and again and each of
them had a scrapyard (where old cars are scrapped).

In the next stanza, the poet says that initially, he didn’t pay attention to the weddings, noises of which were audible at
every station. The sun was beaming and its brightness didn’t let him see what was happening in the shade. He thought

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the noise was being created by the porters having fun with mails. He continued reading but as the train started moving
again, he saw a big group of young female wedding guests — smiling faces, long hair, contemporarily dressed with heels
and veils. The women watched the train leave as if they were experiencing an end of something the poet and other
passengers may have survived. The poet grew a little more interested, he could now understand the whole situation. He
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saw obese fathers with sweaty heads, boisterous obese mothers and rude uncles. The poet then saw the girls again —
nylon gloves, artificial jewels, yellows, pinks and the brown-greens.

These fashion accessories set them apart from the crowd - they looked like an illusion. Those weddings are over, the ones
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which happen in small cafes and halls somewhere near the train yards and rooms covered in streamers and lots of guests.
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The couple would board the train and the guests will throw confetti. Every station the train stopped by, the poet read the
faces of everyone on the platform - they all had something to say regarding the wedding. The children looked bored.

In the next stanza, the poet says that the wedding meant the biggest success for the fathers but something in it seemed
like a joke. The older women seem to hold some awful secret, the girls are confused as they hold their purses tighter and
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look almost intimidated as if they had seen something of fear-inducing religious significance.

Very soon, the train moved further towards London leaving the guests behind after the poet had internalised their beliefs
and notions. The environment became more urban, fields led to the opening of plots on which construction was
happening. The poet also noticed trees and their shadows on the road.
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In these fifty minutes in which the poet became comfortable enough and started reflecting on the wedding, the new
marriages started taking place. The newly married couples looked out of the window from the carriage and saw what not
- a cricket game, a cooling tower, a cinema. The poet thinks that the couple won’t think about other people they won’t
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meet now as both of them are married and would think about their first hour after marriage. When the train reached the
hotter side of London, the poet started imagining areas packed together like squares of wheat.

The train is now heading to the capital and only the mossy walls were to be seen. The synergy of the newly married
couple is about to be unearthed. The train slowed and took rough halts, it felt as if there was a shower of arrows hitting at
a point which was out of sight.

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