Reaction to Ambulances

'closed like confessionals, they thread' - by confessionals you could infer saving your soul from hell could be the ambulance/paramedic is saving the person from death and the word 'thread' could mean that the persons life is hanging by a thread, dependant on the ambulance coming to save them from death. In stanza 3 the line 'that lies under all we do' could be the persona realising that much like the person needing an ambulance, we are all vulnerable, it could be any one of us and death could take us at any time and ultimately there is nothing we can do to prevent it. 'so permanent and blank and true' could be referring to the reality of existence but also to death, the fact that it is inevitable to everyone and most perceptions of death is that it's permanent and that when we die there is nothing, death is the end of everything.

Reaction to MCMXIV

The poem is inspired by WW1 and is about young men waiting to be enlisted for the war. The first stanza shows the patriotism of the crowds watching them enlist. The poem has a lot of dramatic irony in it, with the young men full of hope and prosperity for the war and what it will make of them - however we know that the war will result in death for many of them. 

Reaction to Days

Days could be questioning what we are doing during our existence and whether what are doing is of any worth. Larkin suggests that people live their lives in monotony by saying - 'they come, they wake us/time and time over'. 

'Where can we live but days?' Could hint at his atheist views as Christians would say heaven, but he is questioning what's next. 

Reaction to Take One Home for the Kiddies

The poem infers that the persona thinks children treat pets like toys with no feelings or emotions and that ultimately they don't really care about them and when they die, they will be forgotten and the children will move on to something different that they want their parents to buy them.

Reaction to Water

In the poem you could infer that the persona feels that religion is no longer purely spiritual as it is too strictly controlled - 'A furious devout drench' could infer that the persona feels religion itself needs to be cleansed with water to purify it again. Larkin uses the word 'construct' in the first stanza to suggest he feels that religion is a man made conception and not something spiritual. The word 'fording' in stanza 2 could suggest that the persona feels that religion is a shallow crossing to the answers that we all desire, manly about death. It could be that Larkin is inferring that he thinks religion is just a form of escapism, and that it teaches people not to fear death, even if what it's saying is not necessarily known to be true. However, it sounds like Larkin accepts that some people do trust what religion says even if he does not. 

Reaction to Faith Healing

In the poem, we get the impression that these women are lonely, they lack kindness in their lives and they need love and support. Because of the lack of this, it makes the women vulnerable, and the faith healer is exploiting them because they are weak and naive. They cannot see that he is just an act and even though the women's faith in him is genuine, sadly he is not. His entourage herd the women on to the stage, and when they meet him, 'each dwells some twenty seconds' before being pushed aside and disregarded - it could be a link to what has happened to them in their lives. 

'A sense of life lived according to love' is not only referring to the women and how they want to feel again after a life of neglect, but the persona also suggests that this is everyone's ideal - that we all want to be loved continuously throughout our lives. 

Reaction to Nothing to be Said

In the first stanza, we see a variation in different cultures and people, but Larkin points out through 'life is slowly dying' that we are all the same because of the fact that we are all dying together. You could also interpret this by saying that even though everyone is different, death provides everyone with equality. 

In the second stanza, 'ways of slowly dying' could mean that we all do different things to satisfy us before dying, to keep us occupied before death, also reaffirming the idea of that in the first stanza. 

In the third stanza we see Larkin's view that we as humans want to give evidence to our existence through reproducing and also gives the notion that Larkin feels that whilst life goes quickly - 'or birth, advance', death is eternal. Larkin recognises religion by the last three lines - 'and saying so to some/means nothing; others it leaves/nothing to be said.' - Christians believe in life after death, heaven - so therefore death is another journey, whilst others believe that death is the end.