Mr bleaney essay

In “Mr. Bleaney”, Philip Larkin after doing critical analysis of a person’s life concludes that modern life is entirely tasteless, emotionless, boring and dull. Some critics such as Andrew Motion believes that the poem is highly autobiographical, whereas Janic Rossen is of the view that it is a comparison between poet’s life and Mr. Bleaney’s.

In these stanzas, Mr. Bleaney’s character and speaker’s character are compared. The poet demonstrates further lifestyle of Mr. Bleaney. He loved to spend his holidays with his relatives at Frinton, whereas he used to enjoy Christmas with his sister at Stoke.

The third and final part of the poem, comprising the final two stanzas, is more philosophical, and sees Larkin’s speaker speculating on the depressing fact that both he and Mr Bleaney, and others like them, have nothing more to show for their lives – even when they’re firmly into middle age – than a ‘hired box’, i.e. one rented room.

Philip Larkin completed ‘Mr Bleaney’ in May 1955, and it appeared nine years later in his third major volume of poems, The Whitsun Weddings (1964). The poem is about a professional man renting a room in a woman’s house, and musing on the life of the previous tenant, ‘Mr Bleaney’.