What Do You Learn from a Reading 'dockery and Son', 'selfs the Man' and Abse's 'imitations' About the Poets Attitude to Parenthood?

Larkin has a very negative outlook on parenthood. This shown very well in his poem 'Dockery and Son': "To have no son, no wife, no house or land still seemed natural." Larkin feels that it is normal not to aspire to have a wife and family. In the fifth stanza of the poem Larkin adds that he finds it unjust, that he will be branded as selfish just because he does not want to become married: "Where do these innate assumptions come from?" He doesn't understand why the 'normal' perception of how things should be is like this. Throughout the fifth stanza he questions this: "To me it was dilution." In Larkin's opinion he is no more selfish that Dockery. Dockery has what he wants, and so does Larkin. Larkin feels that by having a family or a child you dilute yourself, that you are no longer 'purely' you, and that you become worse for it. So why then, asks Larkin, is Dockery 'better' than him? Larkin says that is because of society: "They're more a style, our lives bring with them." Everyone feels this way, perhaps not because it's what they personally believe it, but because it's what fits in with the norm, almost as if it's 'fashionable' to think that way. In 'Selfs the man' Larkin has a very negative view of women. This is shown in the second stanza. The woman takes "money he gets". This presents her as needy and selfish. It could also be seen to present her alike to a prostitute. The negative view of the characters is used to represent Larkin's own negative view of marriage. and Larkin uses direct speech: "Put a screw in this wall" makes fun of the stereotypical tone of the woman, and casts her as as hassling and an interference.

...