The Large Cool Store – Philip Larkin

How does Larkin explore ideas of inequality between social classes?

This poem is a description of a Marks and Spencers shop in Larkin’s time. Since then, they have moved further upmarket, but in the 1950s, M&S was a shop much like the Primark of today – selling cheap, though slightly dated, fashionable clothes. There is a sense of class within this poem, and one interpretation of Larkin looking down on the lower class. “The large cool store”, for example, is ambiguous, with “cool” either meaning something along the lines of trendy, or more negative, that the shop is literally cold. “Cheap” for those purchasing the goods would be a positive thing, but the idea of “cheap” comes in twain with “cheap and nasty” and other such idioms.

The first stanza is a brief overview of the store, in which the narrator highlights ranks of affordable clothes most commonly purchased by the proletariat.  The language used here is simplistic which reflects the monotonous lives of the proletariat – predominantly the use of monosyllabic words are used to evoke the look and feel of department stores which reflect the empty, materialistic workers that shop there. Larkin uses the contrast in colours between ‘browns and greys’ of weekday clothes and the more glamorous ‘lemon, sapphire, moss-green’ of the nightwear to show how advertising creates a sense of false consciousness for the proletariat as they believe they can be equal to the bourgeoisie by wearing similar versions of their clothing. This false consciousness also encourages people to believe they can escape their drab lives in these ‘unreal wishes’. Similarly, the poem has an ABABA rhyme scheme throughout, like the lives of the working class; it’s repetitive, monotone and boring.

This poem also highlights the manner in which shops rely on images of women/femininity in order to sell their products and fuel consumer desire. Larkin describes the underwear on stands of Modes of Night as ‘thin as blouses’ and the way the different items ‘flounce in clusters’. The simile creates the impression that both the clothes and the women who buy them are fragile and insubstantial. Likewise, the choice of the verb ‘flounce’ compares flirtatious female behaviour with the way the clothes try to attract the attention of customers. A feminist reading would criticise the way Larkin draws upon images of female sexuality to consider how consumerism operates and suggests that the poem reinforces the idea of women as objects used for men, by men in a phallocentric world. This type of reading would most likely lead to the conclusion that Larkin was a misogynist.

The proletariat depicted within the poem are alienated within the capitalist society that they are most unfortunate to inhabit. However, due to their lack of intelligence (as a result of the bourgeoisie limiting their potential) they are consumed by what some could describe as a reassuring sense of false consciousness.  This idea can be highlighted within the poem due to ‘To suppose, They share that world, to think their sort is’. The working class continue to believe that they will be accepted by the authoritative figures within their world, by dressing in a similar manor to them. However, they fail to recognise the irony within their lives as they consistently ‘leave at dawn low terraced houses’ to un-skilled labour jobs in which they produce the products that they later buy for a considerable amount more than the cost is to produce. This strengthens the power and influence of the bourgeoisie as they continue to entrap the working classes within their materialistic world – the small earnings the workers gain from their labour is wasted on goods that they have mass produced for a fraction of the price; therefore the profit that arises only strengthens and continues to empower the bourgeoisie.

As the workers fail to recognise that this is continually occurring to them, they are blinded by the small wages they earn. They perceive the weekend (two day escape from monotonous daily life) as something that allures them into an ideology that their lives are enjoyable and contented. However, as the bourgeoisie controls the superstructure they intelligently foresee this love for the weekend in which a host of people stereotypically waste hours in local pubs for example. Even when the proletariat are not working they are still reified and transformed into puppets as everything they do is controlled by superior powers. The alcoholic beverages they choose to consume (that cause them to delve into a deeper sense of false consciousness and temporarily forget their issues) are taxed by the bourgeoisie and so they still parsimoniously take the little wages away that the working classes have been granted. This reoccurring conundrum of weekday working to weekend spending engulfs the workers further and empowers the already dominant forces within the capitalist society. This idea reflects Andrew Motion’s view that these people are attempting to escape their ‘drab’ lives by ‘trying to change by night into something they are not’. This idea of the workers relying on the weekend could be seen as a reflection of Marx’s view that ‘religion is the opiate of the people’ as they always need something that blinds them and force them to believe that everything is okay in order to sustain their existence and sense of false consciousness.  Larkin cleverly recognises the inequalities present within the society due to ‘How separate and unearthly love is’. This shows his acknowledgment of the level of power the bourgeoisie possesses and perhaps their abuse of power as they exploit and restrain the lives of everyone below them in the superstructure. A Marxist could interpret this as a way in which Larkin is sympathising towards the workers and exemplifying what inequalities have arisen with society, but ultimately Larkin’s lack of power and inability to make a difference. Alternatively, some readers recognise Larkin’s ideas (words such as ‘synthetic and ‘natureless’) to illustrate the stupidity of the proletariat as they continue to attempt to be accepted within an unfair world that regularly alienates them. A world in which materialistic, selfish people inhabit. People who are only trapped by money and they too will never be completely free until death, who live by the control of economic determinism. Consequently, perhaps the people do need an ‘opiate’ as Marx states in order to empower their lives and strive for something more – a fundamental characteristic of human nature.

At the end of the poem, the speaker draws back from describing the style of the clothes to consider the wider impact of advertising on human life. Whilst it initially appears Larkin is accusing women of being ‘natureless in their ecstasies’, since they are the ones who believe ‘Bri—Nylon Baby—Dolls and Shorties’ offer them a chance of a more glamorous life. Larkin’s real target lies elsewhere. The closing lines really critique the men whose ‘young unreal wishes’ create female desire, or rather the consumer culture itself which feeds it to make money. In this way, the poem is not misogynistic as women are ultimately victims.