Explore how Larkin presents marriage in Self’s the Man.

The poem ‘Self’s the Man’ by Larkin presents marriage through the depiction of Arnold and his wife. In this poem Larkin appears to present marriage as a burden and a disappointment through his own view of someone else’s marriage.

In the first stanza Arnold is immediately presented as a victim for putting up with his marriage in the line ‘Arnold is less selfish than I’ which indicates that he is selfless in comparison to Larkin himself for putting up with his wife and remaining in the marriage.  The line ‘wasting his life on work’ suggests that he gets no benefit out of working to support his wife and family further highlighting the reason why Larkin seems to view Arnold as selfless.

Furthermore, marriage and family life is painted as boring and typical in the second stanza which appears to create the image of a typical nuclear family in the line ‘to pay for the kiddies clobber and the drier and the electric fire’. This line suggests certain female stereotypes within a typical nuclear family that they stay home, clean and take care of the children. In addition to this, the fact that the poem is written in quatrains with rhyming couplets goes along with the depiction that marriage is repetitive, boring and traditional.

The idea that wives are nagging and a pain to their husbands is evoked in the phrase ‘put a screw in this wall’ which is written in italics to give a mocking and imitating tone. In this phrase Larkin clearly wants us to feel sorry for Arnold and present the idea that he is trapped within his marriage. Moreover the fourth stanza lists actions which are typically normal within a marriage in which Larkin sees as above or beyond the expectations of a husband: ‘and the hall to paint in his old trousers and that letter to her mother. This gives us the impression that the author is opposed to idea of married life rather than the character of Arnold himself being opposed to his marriage.

This is further conveyed in the last line of the poem ‘or I suppose I can’ whereby the whole poem is confident and assertive of Larkin’s views but in this line there is a small doubt in himself. Perhaps evoking that Larkin is trying to convince himself of marriage being a burden rather than giving a true account of someone else’s marriage.