The Explosion -
Philip Larkin
Philip Larkin (1922-1985) was one of the most
important poets of the late 20th Century. He wrote the poem The Explosion, in 1970. It is the
final poem in his 1974 collection, “High Windows”. After watching a television programme,
in late 1969, Larkin got inspiration to the write about the British mining
industry and the dangers that miners faced. The speaker of the poem is an observer and commentator on the
crucial event of the poem, an explosion at a mine. It is a short poem of
twenty-five lines.
The first part of the poem begins with a description
of ordinary men going out to do a day’s work down the mine. There is no hint of
apprehension on their part. The poet describes how “On the day of the
explosion/ Shadows pointed towards the pithead.” These “shadows” are an omen of
the terrible event that is to follow.
The actions of the men are all in stark contrast to their work
environment, the sun is shining, they are smoking. One among them is more adventurous and active as he hunts
some rabbits. The rabbits escape, but he finds a nest with a lark’s eggs in it.
He does not destroy or harm this nest but shows it to the others and returns
them to their place in the grass. , and even the reference to larks is significant given that
larks go straight up and the men will soon go straight down in a cage to start
work in the darkness of the mine.
It is significant that poet Philip Larkin does
not describe the actual explosion but rather its effects on the outer world.
With the tremor, cows stop chewing and the sun is “dimmed.” Readers do not see
its effect on the miners who are dying under the earth. That horror and
suffering is hidden from view.
In the second part of the poem the focus is
changed. Now it is the wives who are central. It is said that the poem is based
on a real event and that the wives of the dead miners had visions of their men
at the moment of the explosion. Larkin uses this knowledge to transform what
would be a sad and meaningless accident into an occasion of transformation and
grace. In the religious imaginations of the wives the men are seen for a second
as transformed into gold, metal of purity and endurance. In this new changed
appearance they will live in the memories of their wives. The poem ends with
the image of the unbroken eggs. The eggs are also transformed; now they may
represent the hope of resurrection or the preciousness of memory or the
strength of the bonds of love.
In the face of death we have a choice, either
to accept it as the slide into nothingness or we may find in it the door to
renewal. In this poem Larkin suggests us the renewal vision that flashed into
the shocked serious hearts of the miners wives.
