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Afternoon by Philip Larkin

Summer is fading:
The leaves fall in ones and twos
From trees bordering
The new recreation ground.
In the hollows of afternoonssystilic feature
Young mothers assemble
At swing and sandpit
Setting free their children.metaphor

Behind them, at intervals,
Stand husbands in skilled trades,
An estateful of washing,
And the albums, lettered
Our Wedding, lying
Near the television:
Before them, the wind
Is ruining their courting-places

That are still courting-places
(But the lovers are all in school),
And their children, so intent on
Finding more unripe acrons,
Expect to be taken home.
Their beauty has thickened.
Something is pushing them
To the side of their own lives.

How does Larkin's portray ageing in « Afternoons »

Larkin's choice of words, symbolism and imagery clearly portrays this passage of time and the routines of these mothers lives.he first line sets the scene at the beginning of autumn, a summer is fading. Seasons are used to symbolise certain stages in life. In autumn, most life starts to fade away in front of our eyes. This illustrates how these mothers lives are deteriorating, and how their family have become the only thing they live for. who seize the unripe acorns (a symbol of their impatience to seize the world
Larkin drains the young mothers' lives of the romance they must once have had - their wedding albums lie abandoned by the television (which presumably receives more attention than they do
the number of images of fading or
ending: the end of the day, the end of summer, the falling leaves, the
memories of their wedding, the fading of their courting-places, their beauty,control over their own lives. The use of plural means that it isn't that he isn't only talking about one day but several because this is theroutine of these mothers