A Wife Now Living

  Discuss the presentation of disappointment in the poems of Larkin and Duffy. By Margaret Both Larkin and Duffy use the theme of disappointment in some of their poems. In this essay, I will be looking at the way these two poets present this theme in four of their poems: ‘The Captain of the 1964  Top of the Form  Team’ and ‘Room’ by Carol Ann Duffy, and ‘Home is so Sad’ and ‘Mr. Bleaney’ by Philip Larkin.       The first pair of poems I will be looking at  is  Duffy’s ‘The Captain of the 1964  Top of the Form  Team’ and Larkin’s ‘Home is so Sad’. As well as centring on the theme of disappointment, these two poems focus specifically on how our remembrance of our past can disappoint us. Often, we remember things to  be better and more exciting than they actually were, causing the type of bitter nostalgia that plays a key role in both poems.       Duffy’s poem begins on a high: ‘I ...