High Windows

Philip Larkin opens “High Windows” with a subordinating conjunction, “When” (Line 1). By initiating the stanza in this way, Larkin generates momentum for the reader. The first three lines are all part of this subordinate clause, propelling forward the reader forward until they encounter the implied "when that, then this." The subordinate clause in question is an observation by the speaker who is implied to be Larkin. The speaker “see[s] a couple of kids” (Line 1) and assumes they are “fucking” (Line 2), using either “pills or wearing a diaphragm” as contraceptives (Line 3). Perhaps the most notable element of this observation is the use of the obscenity which a reader may not expect to encounter in a poem—particularly as soon as its second line. The shockingly casual use of the term mirrors the shockingly casual approach to sex (for the time) that Larkin is discussing. In this way, the poem introduces its subject while demonstrating the speaker’s feelings in the reader’s own reaction to the poem’s language.

While the jarring use of obscenity so early in the poem may appear to imply a negative view of these new sexual mores, the final line of the stanza instead states the speaker “know[s] this is paradise” (Line 4). While the line receives natural emphasis as the final one in its stanza, and because it is observably shorter than the preceding lines, it is especially grammatically emphasized. Because the first three lines are all part of the subordinate clause commenced by the “When” (Line 1), the momentum of the poem builds until it reaches the primary clause in the fourth line: “When I see,” “[then] I know” (emphasis added) (Lines 1, 4). These three elements combine to create a powerful fourth line, which works to quickly subvert the attitude seemingly implied in the beginning of the stanza.

The second stanza expands on the first’s final line, concluding the sentence after the stanza break: “a paradise // Everyone old has dreamed of” (Lines 4-5). Even after this clause is concluded, the second stanza continues its work of expansion. The speaker further describes the nature of this paradise, where “Bonds and gestures” (Line 6) have been cast aside like “an outdated combine harvester” (Line 7). By comparing the more conservative/repressive sexual ethics of an older society with old farming equipment, Larkin casts those ethics in a matter-of-fact light. Most people do not tend to think of values in the same way as technology, as things that become useless as soon as a better model is available. However, this is precisely what Larkin’s simile does. Whether this pragmatic understanding of sexual customs is defended or critiqued by the poem will depend upon the reader’s understanding of the poem’s final image.

The “outdated combine harvester” (Line 7) both expresses a utilitarian view of cultural approaches to sex and performs the outmoded concept for which it is a stand-in. The phrase itself is awkward, metrically irregular, and deeply unpoetic—especially compared to the sparse and slick diction Larkin has thus employed in the poem. In other words, the phrase is as (poetically) out of place as the object to which it refers. In the last line of his second stanza, Larkin introduces an important image: the “long slide” of life, which he imagines “everyone young going down” (Line 8).

Any image of life built around a rapid fall seems to imply a hurtle toward death, and Larkin’s stanza break after the phrase “long slide” (Line 8) lets his reader sit for a moment with this grim implication. Before the angst can set, however, the following stanza picks the phrase up, specifying the slide’s destination: “To happiness, endlessly” (Line 9). The contrast between the implication and the written conclusion of the image creates a sense of simmering ambivalence behind the speaker’s apparent celebration of these societal changes. This tactic mirrors the implied negativity of the first stanza subverted by its emphatic fourth line.

Rather than return to the “kids” (Line 1), the poem begins a new reflection on its own reflection. The speaker reflects on his own thoughts about the couple, “wonder[ing] if / Anyone looked at [him]” (Lines 9-10) in his youth as he now looks at them. For the speaker, the “couple of kids” (Line 1) represent a change of society, a new generation free from the “Bonds” (Line 6) of the old. The speaker wonders not just if he was observed, but if he was observed as a symbol of generational freedom. Rather than sexual freedoms, his imagined elder envies the freedoms that come with the conclusion of socially sanctioned religious practices. Larkin gives italicized dialogue to this imagine elder, who thinks, “That’ll be the life; / No God any more” (Lines 11-12). The hypothetical elder resents Larkin’s generation for its freedom from fearing “hell and that, or having to hide / What you think of the priest” (Lines 13-14). The speaker’s imagined observer ends his reflection the same way the speaker did: by concluding that the new generation, freed from the old social restraints, will “all go down the long slide / Like free bloody birds” (Lines 15-16).

To this point, the poem has introduced scenes, images, and reflections which seem to imply hidden ambiguities; then, it quickly shifts into the next stanza instead of taking time to explore these possible incongruities. At the end of its second-to-last stanza, the poem makes explicit this literary move. As soon as the italicized, hypothetical monologue ends, Larkin adds to the last line of the stanza, “And immediately” (Line 16). In a certain sense, this strategy of making his implicit structural motif explicit is a vindication to a reader who may feel abruptly thrown from thought to thought. On the other hand, its inclusion is somewhat cheeky, injecting the poem with Larkin’s signature sardonic humor.

What is it, then, that “immediately” (Line 16) follows the speaker’s meta-reflection? His train of thought is suddenly upended by an image: “Rather than words comes the thought of high windows” (Line 17). Unlike the other thoughts of the speaker, this is not something he “know[s]” (Line 4), nor something he “wonder[s]” (Line 9). Instead, this vision appears unbidden, outside of the speaker’s control. The image is sensuous, vivid, and arresting—enough to occupy both the remainder of the poem and the entirety of its final stanza. The windows are high up, made of “sun-comprehending glass” (Line 18) and viewed from the inside. Because the image immediately follows the speaker’s thoughts about freedom from church and religion, the high windows are strongly implied to be church windows. It would seem, then, that the speaker is not quite the religiously “free bloody bird” (Line 16) he believes himself to be.

The poem concludes not on the actual windows, but on what lies “beyond” (Line 19) them. Past the windows is only “deep blue air, that shows / Nothing” (Lines 19-20). So far, the poem has built itself on easily comprehensible building blocks: a scene, a direct simile, a simple metaphor, a monologue. Each of its pieces—at least on a surface-level—refers to something immediately tangible. This makes it especially remarkable that the “deep blue air” beyond the windows “shows / Nothing” (Lines 19-20). After all of his neat conclusions (“I know this is paradise,” “everyone young going […] // To happiness,” etc.) (Lines 4, 8-9), the speaker is confronted with an instinctive vision offering no tidy meanings.

The “Nothing” beyond the windows “is nowhere, and is endless” (Line 20). The final word recalls the happiness toward which the “young going down the long slide” approached (Line 8). This echo works to pair the nothingness of the sky with the happiness of a socially liberated generation. Unlike each generation’s destination, which the poem has so far assumed changes, the “deep blue air” (Line 19) is unchangingly nothing.

The final stanza is partially defined by its ambiguity—especially contrasted as it is to the preceding stanzas’ clarity. It may be read, however, as an expression of the speaker’s implicit or subconscious knowledge: The supposed happiness resulting from societal change is trumped by the existential emptiness applied without reservation to every generation. Although he is tempted to think of the new generation as finally free—as moving toward the happiness for which he could only long in a more sexually repressed society—the speaker’s own thoughts are refuted by his unbidden vision of the infinite nothingness that truly waits at the bottom of the “long slide” (Line 8). On this read, the imagined elder envying the speaker’s freedoms serves to reinforce the sameness of the human experience. Each generation assumes societal changes will finally bring widespread happiness, but this is simply another part of the unchanging cycle of life and death.

However, the “endless” (Line 20) “deep blue air” (Line 19) is not a sinister or depressing image. Instead, it is a serene vision characterized by sublimity and beauty. The image may be read not as a resignation toward death but an acceptance of the beauty of the cycle of human life. The cycle may mean “Nothing” (Line 20), but the meaninglessness of human existence is not expressed in despair. Instead, the removal of meaning becomes the ultimate “Bond [or] gesture pushed to one side” (Line 6). The absence of any meaning or even substantive change to the human experience is a beautiful expanse, like the “deep blue” (Line 19) of a cloudless sky.