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Analysis of Take one Home for the Kiddies

Synopsis= The poem regards the temporary nature of pets and the devaluation of life by children perhaps due to their inexperience with death. It is whether or not the parents are to blame in buying the pet for the children perhaps regarding working class negligence. Larkin appears to subvert the usual attitudes towards the innocence of children as he bands children as heartless and violent. 

 Key Quotations + Analysis 
1.) "Take on home for the kiddies"

  • "Take"= suggests the unnatural action of ownership over pets and the willingness people have to remove them from their natural habitat
  • "One" furthers the ideals of lacking individuality as the poem never specifies the animal showing the lack of importance branded to the pets
  • "Kiddies" suggests the commercialisation of life not only the lives of children but also of their pets. 

2.) "Mam get us one of them"

  • Colloquial language, Larkins use of the colloquial "mam" could show a criticism of the working class by Larkin of the neglectful attitudes towards their children and the pets. 
  • Also shows that the children do not comprehend the value of having a pet, this is reinforced with the phrase "one of them" as it shows that the children don't care what pet is chosen. Personifies the animals as toys that the children want to play with, and eventually over time will get bored with. 
3.) "Living toys"
  • Lexical choice "toys" emphasises the lack of significance given to the animals as temporary characters in the children's playing. 
  • Toys are inanimate which is heavily contrasted with the word choice "living", this juxtaposition highlights the mistreatment of animals who are living creatures and deserves to be treated with more value than a "toy". 
4.) "Fetch the shoebox, fetch the shovel"
  • Nonchalant attitude towards the death of their pets, further accentuated using the colloquial verb "fetch" which implies that their deaths are followed by with little thought and recollection by the children. 
5.) "Mam, we're playing funerals now" 
  • The verb choice "playing" shows that the children at no point separated themselves from their juvenile attitude towards life and even in death it only acts to further their games. 
  • It would appear that the poem debates the morality of having a pet and whether or not that the children can be assigned as apathetic and violent if they lack the knowledge to comprehend their actions. This is supported by this line as "playing funerals" is deemed as extremely immoral, however this could be as a result of the children's lack of knowledge towards what is morally correct and incorrect. 


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