Assessment Objective Three Here The Large Cool Store

main menu Click a link below § Overview of Assessment Objective three § i. Comparing ideas, attitudes and themes - exemplar paragraph comparing ideas § ii. Comparing language, structure and form - exemplar paragraph comparing language § iii. alternative interpretations based on own judgments - Exemplar alternative reading paragraph § iv alternative interpretations informed by critical theory - Exemplar alternative reading using literary theory § v. using critical views - critical views relating to ‘Here’ - exemplar alternative reading using criticism

overview Assessment Objective Three AO 3 has two main elements. The first tests your ability to compare texts, exploring differences and similarities in meaning and style. The second aims to assess how well you engage with other readings of the text in your overall argument. There are two main aspects of a good comparison: i. the ideas, themes and attitudes in the texts ii. the style or methods of presentation - language, structure, form There are three ways to construct other readings: iii. construct alternative readings of your own iv. use theoretical models and approaches e. g. feminism, Marxism v. responding to critical opinions about the text by academics, teachers or professional writers return to menu

i. comparing ideas, attitudes and themes Here The Large Cool Store • The speaker shows disgust towards contemporary society and searches for his freedom • The speaker looks down on people who try to find meaning in material possessions • Consumerism takes people away from their dull existence and fills them with desire for a better life • Modern advertising and department stores create the illusions that ordinary people can escape their drab lives • There is an intense loneliness and sadness in modern society, resulting in humans becoming isolated and detached • In modern society human relationships are perverted with people separated from each other and dehumanised return to menu

exemplar paragraph comparing ideas Both poems show speakers who look down on the attitudes and behaviour of other people in society. In ‘Here’ the persona expresses disgust towards the ‘cut-price crowd’ who ‘push through plate-glass swing doors’ to ‘their desires’. He wants to escape the endless bombardment of ‘cheap suits, red kitchen-ware, sharp shoes’ and to find the freedom of ‘unfenced existence’. In a similar way, the voice of ‘The Large Cool Store’ scorns the ‘sort’ ‘from low terraced houses’ who head towards the department stores at the weekend hoping to ‘share’ the ‘world’ represented by the glamour of Modes at Night. Whilst the speaker in ‘Here’ wants to escape this consumer culture, the persona of ‘The Large Cool Store’ appears resigned to being part of a society of ‘unreal wishes’ where people are ‘synthetic, new, / and natureless ecstasies. ’ return to menu

Practice Activity one: write a paragraph comparing the ideas and attitudes in ‘Mr Bleaney’ and ‘Talking in Bed’.

ii. comparing language, structure and form Here The Large Cool Store • The language is quotidian, • The language is largely with an absence of adjectives monosyllable with the listing in the cataloguing of of different colours used to consumer goods on sale contrast dreams with realities • The structure of the poem marks the stages of a journey builds like an argument away from society towards a where the final stanza makes freedom and isolation still just a poetic judgment on the out of reach impact of advertising on lives • The four stanza largely • The form of this lyrical poem iambic pentameter form with combines the mundane regular alternate rhyme helps details of everyday existence create sense of a steady, with more tender, poetic unending search for freedom reflections return to menu

exemplar paragraph comparing language The language Larkin uses in both poems to describe the goods on sale in modern consumer culture is simple, plain and quotidian. In ‘Here’ the everyday language describes the overwhelming range of ‘desires’ that lie behind the ‘plate-glass swing doors’ of the stores. Larkin catalogues the ‘eclectic mixers, toasters, washers, driers’, where the absence of adjectives reflects the dehumanising effect of choice on individual identity. In comparison, the language used in ‘The Large Cool Store’ is even more simplistic, with predominately monosyllabic words used to evoke the look and feel of department stores. Larkin uses the contrast in colours between the ‘browns and greys’ of weekday clothes and the more glamorous ‘lemon, sapphire, moss-green’ of the nightwear to show advertising creates the illusion people can escape their drab lives in these ‘unreal wishes’. return to menu

Practice Activity two: write a paragraph comparing the methods of presentation in ‘Mr Bleaney’ and ‘Talking in Bed’.

iii. alternative interpretations based on own judgments How to form an alternative reading of your own English literature depends a great on interpretation: readers from different periods with different backgrounds are unlikely to read the meaning or meanings in a text in exactly the same way. Likewise, most texts invite readers to form their own judgments, particularly in relation to ideas and themes where there is no clear moral position. • Check mark scheme to see if alternative interpretations required • Aim to give 2 -3 alternative readings in an essay • Choose significant alternative readings e. g. in Larkin’s poems closing lines are often ambiguous, inviting alternative (contradictory) readings • Engage with the alternative reading in your argument • Use subordinating conjunctions to frame your alternative reading return to menu

Exemplar alternative reading paragraph Alternative reading Own opinion At the end of ‘The Large Cool Store’ the speaker draws back from describing the clothes on Subordinating display to consider the wider impact of conjunction advertising on human life. Whilst it initially appears Larkin is accusing women of being ‘natureless in their ecstasies’, since they are the ones who think ‘Bri-Nylon Baby Dolls and shorties’ offer them the chance of a more glamorous life, Larkin’s real target lies elsewhere. The closing lines really critique the men whose ‘young unreal wishes’ create female desire, or rather the consumer culture itself which feeds of it Use to make money. In this way, the poem is not alternative reading in misogynistic as women are ultimately victims. argument return to menu

Practice Activity three: write a paragraph about ‘Mr Bleaney’ that takes into account an alternative reading.

iv alternative interpretations informed by critical theory • Post colonial readings are interested in how colonial countries and people are represented in texts by Western writers. They explore the ways in which postcolonial writers write about their own identity. • Feminist readings believe ‘feminine’ and ‘masculine’ are constructed by culture. They are interested in how women represented in texts written by men, and how texts display power relations between sexes. • Psychoanalytical readings are interested in the unconscious, and pay close attention to what is glossed over or ‘repressed’. They look beyond obvious surface meaning to what the text is ‘really’ about. • Marxist readings look at other relevant historical texts, alongside literary ones, in order to see more clearly the context in which the literature was produced, and to recover its history. They look at how class differences are established and reinforced in texts. • Structurualist and post-structuralist readings are not interested in when a text was written, who it was written by, or what it is about. They believe we use language to construct our world. They are most interested in how the text is constructed: its form, its structure and the patterns of language in it, especially pairs of opposites. return to menu

exemplar alternative reading using literary theory ‘The Large Cool Store’ highlights the way shops rely on images of women and femininity to sell their products and fuel consumer desire. Larkin describes the underwear on the stands of Modes of Night as ‘thin as blouses’ and the way the different items ‘flounce in clusters’. The simile creates the impression that both the clothes and the women who buy them are fragile and unsubstantial. Likewise, the choice of the verb ‘flounce’ compares flirtatious female behaviour with the way the clothes try to attract the attention of customers. A feminist reading would criticise the way Larkin’s draws upon images female sexuality to consider how consumerism operates and suggest that the poem reinforces ideas of women as objects used by men for men. This type of reading would most probably consider Larkin to be a misogynist. return to menu

Practice Activity four: write a paragraph about ‘Mr Bleaney’ that uses a theoretical approach to support a point made.

v. using critical views Critical views Most of the texts that are studied at A Level have been written about extensively over the years by a number of different types of professional writers, such as academics, teachers, reviewers and the authors themselves. Much of what we know about texts, particularly older plays, novels and poems, comes from other people’s research, analysis and ideas. We refer to this writing as criticism and these critical views can be very useful in helping to develop our own ideas. Most criticism falls into two main categories a) ideas and opinions about the specific text b) ideas and opinions about the writer and their writing in general return to menu

critical views relating to ‘Here’ • From beginning to end the poem is a restless quest across country, never stopping for breath until it reaches the sea. Life, the poet is aware, is an ever-moving point of consciousness; we have nothing else. James Booth • At the close the poet finds the more sublime detachment at which he has been aiming. James Booth • On his journeys the poet is tortured by anxieties about potential contact between his exiled, observant persona, and the communities from which he is sealed away. Nicholas Marsh • Larkin frequently embraces linguistic strangeness, self-conscious literariness, radical self-questioning, sudden shifts of voice and register, complex viewpoints and perspectives, and symbolist intensity. Stephen Regan • Sweeping like a camera in a helicopter over the ‘widening river’s slow presence’ towards the‘surprise of a large town, he lingers over the clutter of civic detail before veering on again to the country between Hull and the coast, where he plunges into solitude. Andrew Motion return to menu

exemplar alternative reading using criticism ‘Here’ depicts a lonely figure desperate to escape the noise and emptiness of modern life. The speaker is on a quest for freedom, ‘swerving east, from rich industrial shadows’ through the centre of Hull towards the Holderness Peninsula that faces the North Sea where ‘silence stands / like heat’ and he can experience thrill of ‘unfenced existence’. His restless desire to get away from others is displayed in his reliance on the verb ‘swerving’, which in the first stanza is repeated three times at the start of lines or of after strong pauses to recreate the sense of perpetual motion and avoidance. James Booth explains how at the end of the poem ‘the poet finds the more sublime detachment at which he has been aiming. ’ It seems that the voice in the poem is looking for some kind of spiritual escape from modern society, where he can be truly free. return to menu

critical views relating to ‘The Large Cool Store’ • Larkin's objects to the hypocrisies of conventional sexual politics that hamper the lives of both sexes in equal measure. Stephen Cooper • His fury against women is not so much a declared state of siege against them personally as it is an internal battle raging within himself. Janice Rossen • To call Larkin a misogynist would be an overstatement – to call him a misanthropist might be closer to the mark. Janice Rossen • The argument is whether the shoppers are deluding themselves when they buy something…or are they going beyond the limits which society sets for them? Andrew Motion • There is a sense of contradiction in the middle of the poem in that what lies furthest from us - for instance the brightly coloured shop – is somehow going to tell us how the poem will end. Andrew Motion • Larkin sees drab houses, drab colours, drab lives and drab people during the week trying to change by night into something they are not. Andrew Motion return to menu

Practice Activity five: write a paragraph about ‘Mr Bleaney’ that uses one or two critical views to support a point.

Practise Activity six: Write a comparison of the ways ideas of isolation are presented in Mr Bleaney and Talking in Bed. Remember to: § Compare the ideas, attitudes and feelings § Compare the methods of presentation § Show awareness of different readings: - your own alternative interpretation - critical views - theoretical frameworks