Ambulances

Ambulances by Philip Larkin tells the story of how normal life is temporarily shaken up by a sudden accident etc this is when an ambulance is called. The poem also highlights how a sudden tragic moment can bring a community together to fight on.

Stanza 1

Stanza 1 is a description of how Paramedic staff go about their day to day lives obstructing normality, they view the things they see in day to day life as completely normal and they have learned to grow accustomed to the attention they draw when they reach their destinations. "giving back none of the glances they absorb ... all streets in time are visited. Any civilian would view a medical emergency as a major change to a normal day however the experienced Paramedics see this day to day so it is normal to them.


Stanza 2

Stanza 2 describes how the arrival of the Ambulance destroys the organization of modern life. As it arrives the children stand "strewn around the area eager to find out what is going on. the sense of disruption is reinforced when the "women come out of the shops past smells of different dinners". The seriousness of the situation is enforced when there is a possibillity that there has been a fatality
"a wild white face that over tops Red stretcher-blankets".


Stanza 3

The next stanza reinforces the idea of a fatality "and the sense of solving emptiness that lies just under what we do". This could also be linked to Larkin's poem 'Nothing to be said' where he reiterates his beliefs that death is inevitable and there is no way to escape it. Later on Larkin has a positive view on society  ( for a change) he notes how this tragic time brings the people around closer together "poor soul they whisper at there own distress".


Stanza 4
 The next stanza begins to describe how normal life then resumes as the Ambulance doors are closed. Once the doors are closed the shock of what has just happened begins to settle and life soon begins to return to normal. "the unique random blend of families and fashions, there at last begin to loosen. Larkin is trying to describe the hold that the experience has on the people around it.

Stanza 5

The final stanza highlights how quickly the experience becomes a memory, "and dulls to distance all we are. Larkin is trying to say that sadly one way in which communities come together is through bad times.