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Philip Larkins Ambulances


By: Christopher Giofreda

The poet Philip Larkin (1922-1985) had a message for future students of the 20th century; the world which had inspired his predecessors was now nothing more than a brusque, metaphysical reality. If the 19th century had been a birthday party the 20th century was nothing but a wake for the striving spirit. He broke the continuity in which poets such as Wordsworth believed. Disconsolate and reeking of deadly imagery, "Ambulances" rends our consciousness through its sextets like so many sirens through the "Loud noons of cities." (2)
1) Closed like confessionals, they thread/
2) Loud noons of cities, giving back
3) None of the glances they absorb/
4) Light glossy grey, arms on a plaque
5) They come to rest at any kerb/
6) All streets in time are visited
The ambulance is remarkably private. It's a stark and lonely chamber where one does nothing but admit guilt to his or her confessor. That Larkin makes the comparison is indicative of his misanthropy. Gross spiritual suffering finally comes to a head and causes these outbursts. There is no mention of a full, closed life. Instead Larkin's dead are pulled suddenly from their lives in an abortive fashion. They never know when, "All Streets in time are visited." (5)
Other analysts have mentioned that the light, glossy, grey of the ambulance all represent the three stages of life. An excellent analysis that support this assertion can be found here.
7) Then children strewn on steps or road/
8) Or women coming from the shops
9) Past smells of different dinners, see/
10) A wild white face that overtops
11) Red stretcher-blankets momently/
12) As it is carried in and stowed,
Nobody is spared from the "wild, white face" of the amblance, almost ghost-like. The human being in the ambulance is robbed of his or her personhood and vitality, stored in the same manner as a common blanket. The food here is the nourishment of life juxtaposed with the specter of death.
13) And sense the solving emptiness/
14) That lies just under all we do
15) And for a second get it whole, So permanent and blank and true/
16) The fastened doors recede
17) Poor soul/
18) They whisper at their own distress
The "solving emptiness" bemoans existence as a problem from which we are released. It's possible to argue that Larkin here is breaking with his trademark pessimism. The end of the labors on this plane lead to salvation. According to Brendan McNamee the poet believed in the presence of a guiding hand though he stopped far short of embracing orthodox religious systems. It is one of only two lines that offer hope.
The solving emptiness lies under all we do and this imagery evokes thoughts of being buried. Our ancestors may have ridden in ambulances themselves. We will become them. "And for a second get it whole", for a moment the onlookers get a view of the ineffable and a complete understanding. The 20th century was full of bargains for knowledge. The fury of the atom bomb for instance came from the "gift" of molecular understanding. The view is temporary and there is no communication. The people on the street project themselves into the ambulance.
19) For borne away in deadened air/
20) May go the sudden shut of loss
21) Round something nearly at an end/
22) And what cohered in it across
23) The years, the unique random blend/
24) Of families and fashions, there
The air itself is "deadened". Does it now carry the soul of the dying? Is Larkin giving up a permanent fixture on which to pin our desire for immortality? It's impossible to conclude that Larkin meant to make us feel good because the ambulance-goer is "something" and not someone. They are still blankets. Perhaps the metaphysical mystery of their being remains unsolved. Could that be the reason for such a vague label to their lives? If information is not a refuge for the human soul what is? Certainly Larkin thought little could save us.
"What cohered in it across," is the final nail in the coffin of continuity. The person in the ambulance had begun to see some semblance of a pattern to their days, but abruptly heard "the sudden shut of loss". Our presumptions of understanding are left broken.
25) At last begin to loosen. Far/
26) From the exchange of love to lie
27) Unreachable insided a room/
28) The trafic parts to let go by
29) Brings closer what is left to come/
30) And dulls to distance all we are
In our final moments we are away from the solace of those who loved and protected us, "Unreachable inside a room." We are still alive to see the things we know lie broken. The last line though reconnects the viewers to the ambulance. The passing of this "someone" inspires others to live, if only briefly.

[سامح]

As Philip Larkin grew older, he became more and more obsessed with the concept of death. Larkin was largely considered to be an atheist; so for Larkin death didn't mean passing through the pearly gates into heaven, instead death was an all-powerful entity that could take you at any time to some unknown terrifying abyss. In Larkin's poem Ambulances, he uses an ambulance to convey both the loneliness of age and death, and the fact that death comes to all, sooner or later. Ambulances are generally vehicles that are associated with help and rescue, but in this poem the ambulance is portrayed in an ominous light, in order to jar the reader's sense of security. In this poem, the ambulance is in effect like the Grim Reaper, who comes to collect souls and ferry's them into the afterlife.
Larkin's uses the confessional to demonstrate the difference a generation makes; the previous generation would have gone to church to heal themselves, while the new generation with its new health care system went to hospitals; thus, the ambulance becomes the modern day confessional. Confessionals are enclosed stalls in a Roman Catholic Church in which priests hear confessions. "Closed like confessionals" is a simile; the closed door of the confessional is similar to the confined space of an ambulance when its doors are closed. Like a confessional, an ambulance can be a very vulnerable place for its inhabitants; you bear your soul in a confessional, and put your life/body in the hands of the paramedics. Ambulances thread-to make one's way through or between-the noontime rush-hour; they will also most likely have their siren on, which draws the stares of strangers. The ambulance doesn't stop to explain; it is on a mission, to save a life. Some are startled by the siren and the presence of the ambulance, while others are curious about what has happened. The appearance of the ambulance also tends to frighten, because it means that someone out there, no one knows who, could be injured, dying, or even dead. The color of the ambulance is a "light glossy grey," and it has a plaque with the emergency services coat of arms on the side. It is fitting that the ambulance is painted grey, because ambulances often serve as the grey area between life and death; some who enter the ambulance alive leave it dead. The last two lines are particularly ominous; you never know when it will be your turn to die, but rest assured that one day it will be your turn to die. Death is inevitable and all-powerful.
Everyone stops what they are doing to look at the ambulance. Children stop playing and stand strewn-scattered-on door steps and streets; women stop shopping; dinners are left on the stoves, all so that they can watch as the ambulance's newest victim be taken away. The person being put into the ambulance is void of any identity; he or she is simply described as having a "wild white face." The whiteness could be referring to two things: first, the person has grey hair, and from that we can infer that the person is older; and second, that all of the blood has gone from the person's face due to fear or illness. Wild probably refers to the patient being scared or having some psychosis, seizure, or other ailment that would require hospitalization. The person is carried into the ambulance/confessional on a stretcher and secured into place for the long journey to the hospital/afterlife.
The men, women, and children standing around watching this spectacle all sense for a moment the solution for the emptiness that they all feel inside; the solution is death. Death lies under all we do; the fear of dying drives us to live and take chances. For a second they feel whole with the knowledge that death is permanent, blank, and true; death offers an end from all of their fears, worries, and obligations, but dying also means not being able to experience happiness and love anymore. Nothing is greater or more powerful than death; death is the ultimate truth. "Poor soul" is italicized to emphasis the doom felt by the spectators and the inevitably of the person's death; by referring to the person as a "soul" the narrator is telling us that that person will be dying soon. The spectators whisper as a way to calm their nerves, and in an effort not to attract death. They are sad for the person in the ambulance, but they are also happy that it wasn't their time, yet.
The person in the ambulance is borne-carried-away to the hospital (or metaphorically to the afterlife), in the deadened air. The "deadened air" has a twofold meaning: first, there is death in the air, meaning someone is going to die soon; and second, the noontime noises have quieted down in reverence for the "poor soul" being taken away. The people, who were standing around watching the paramedics load the person into the ambulance and then drive off, is reminiscent of a funeral; the people at the "funeral" had a moment of silence for the person, as people do at traditional wakes and funerals. The person's life is "nearly at an end;" he/she will take with them the "unique random blend of families and fashions" that has made up their unique life. Happiness and love are fleeting, but death is the only thing that we can truly count on in life.
The person's ties to their earthly existence are fading. Gone are the days of love with loved ones. He/she is now unreachable inside the ambulance. The traffic parts to let the ambulance through; the closer to the hospital they get, the further that person is from their life. These are his/her last moments. Who we are, no longer matters, death is all there is now.

[سامح]

AMBULANCES Philip Larkin
A meditation on the closeness of death, its randomness and its inevitability. These three ideas are captured for Larkin in the action of ambulances in the city. Today young people might see ambulances as a sign of hope, a positive intervention sustaining life rather than heralding death. When the poem was written in the fifties, to be carried away in an ambulance was a sign of worse to come.
Stanza 1
The ambulances symbolise death. They are closed and inscrutable “giving back none of the glances they absorb”; like a corpse. They are private, secretive, silent like confessionals. They cause agitation in people who glance nervously at them hoping that their time has not come. The randomness of death is suggested by
“They come to rest at any kerb”
Its inevitability is expressed in,
“all streets in time are visited”
Stanza 2
Note Larkin’s superb eye for significant detail as he points out the contrast between the zest and energy of living
“children strewn on roads”
“women….past smells of different dinners…”
and the horror of its opposite
“A wild white face..”
as the patient is carried away from the flow of normality to be “stowed” like some dead thing in the ambulance. The red of the blankets, the white of the face are colours of distress.
Stanza 3
A reflective stanza after the vivid details of the first two. The poet is moved to think that death is our common fate that has the power to render life meaningless. All our busy concerns, all our cooking, our play is just a way of filling time until death takes us away to empty nothingness;
“And sense the solving emptiness
“That lies just under all we do”.
This thought which we put out of our minds comes to us without any softening theology
“And for a second (we) get it whole
So permanent and blank and true”
As the ambulance pulls away, Larkin suggests that peoples’ expression of sympathy at the patient’s plight is also an expression of our common vulnerability to sickness and death.
Stanza 4 and 5
Now Larkin thinks of the dying patient and the sadness in her heart
as she experiences
“the sudden shut of loss
Round something nearly at an end.”
He sympathises with her fear. He reflects on the loss that death will
bring; how it will destroy this unique person
“the unique random blend of families and fashions…”
and “loosens” her from her family and identity - all that really
matters to us as people.
The tremendous isolation of being in an ambulance as she faces
death
“Far from the exchange of love to lie
Unreachable inside a room “(i.e. the ambulance)
brings out Larkin’s deep sympathy for the victim. This sympathy is
for a real person.
But as with most poems by Larkin, he is able to take a particular
experience, a particular circumstance and find a general truth in it.
Here, the suffering of the victim become the model for all life lived,
all death experienced. The model is bleak, however. Living
according to this model is just the rush towards death,
“brings closer what is left to come”
and the effect of this realisation is to make life seem a lonely and
bleak experience robbed of its joyful immediacy its pleasant
physicality,
“And dulls to distance all we are.”
We are left isolated by the experience, distanced from ourselves.

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