"Ambulances" by Philip Larkin

Introduction

Ambulances is, in its totality, a celebration of the values of consciousness. It modestly and
devoutly collects evidence of ordinary life to create a truth which can be universally
acknowledged. The poem is a depressing one. The very title suggests something saddening.
Ambulances drive through a city street, and stop to pick up a critically sick man and take him to a
hospital.

Everybody looks at an ambulance when it is driving through the streets, though an ambulance
does not look back at anybody. The sick man has been taken away to a hospital and the sense of
loss which the spectators might have experienced would then abruptly come to an end. The
man, who has been carried to the hospital by the ambulance, had led a meaningful life which
was a mixture of family relationships and an observance of the fashions of the time. But that life
has now come to an end and has, in fact, lost all its meaning.

The main idea in this poem is that an ambulance signifies illness, and that it fills the spectators
with the thought of death. The first two stanzas of the poem contain vivid and realistic imagery
of the ambulances threading their way through the streets of a city possibly at noon-time when
there are many loud noises coming from the traffic and from the crowds of people. When an
ambulance comes to a stop, women coming from the shops look at the wild white face of the
sick man who is being taken away to a hospital. The remaining three stanzas of this poem
contain the poets reflections and meditations on the sad fate which awaits all of us. The entire
life of an individual loses its meaning in the face of his approaching death. What gives to the
poem Ambulances its impressive authority is its relentless insistence that all streets in time are
visited, and its closing assertion that to be taken away by an ambulance brings closer what is
left to come, /And dulls to distance all we are.

Critical Appreciation
A Pessimistic Poem About Illness and Death

The main idea in this poem is that an ambulance signifies illness, and that it fills the spectators
with the thought of death. The spectators perceive their own lives coming to an end when they
see a seriously ailing man being taken to a hospital by an ambulance. The approach of death,
says the poet, would mean an end to a life of activity which includes family relationships and
fashions. But, when death comes, this unique random blend of families and fashions would
come to an end, thus depriving life of all its meaning. Here then is another poem about death by
Larkin who had felt obsessed with the fact and the reality of death throughout his life. This,
again, is a pessimistic poem with an atmosphere of pathos and melancholy hovering over it.

Vivid and Realistic Imagery

The first two stanzas of this poem contain vivid and realistic imagery of the ambulances
threading their way through the streets of a city possibly at noon-time when there are many
loud noises coming from the traffic and from the crowds of people. When an ambulance comes
to a stop, women coming from the shops look at the wild white face of the sick man who is being
taken away to a hospital. There is a realistic detail about the women coming from the shops,
past smells of different dinners, meaning that these women have passed several food-shops
which were emitting odours of different kinds. The remaining three stanzas of this poem contain
the poets reflections and meditations on the sad fate which awaits all of us. The entire life of an
individual loses its meaning in the face of his approaching death. There is a vivid picture also in
the line: The traffic parts to let go by. When an ambulance is driving through a street, the
people move quickly to one side or the other in order to make way for the ambulance.
A Depressing Poem

This poem is a really depressing one. The very title suggests something saddening. The sight of
an ambulance has an immediate effect on the spectators who would at once think of somebody
dying. An ambulance may remove a sick man, who has been injured seriously in a road accident,
to a hospital. But an ambulance always symbolizes illness, disease, a road accident, and possibly
death. The sight of an ambulance is by no means a cheering one.

Critics Comments

One of the critics says that the poem Ambulances conveys the idea that every imaginable pain in
life is as nothing compared to the permanent and true fact of death. This poem is, in its totality,
a celebration of the values of consciousness. Even the greatest drama of lifethe unique
random blend of families and fashionscannot continue for ever. All streets in time are visited
by ambulances, and all people are eventually carried and stowed inside those ambulances. The
same critic says that Ambulances, like all Larkins best poems, modestly and devoutly collects
evidence of ordinary life to create a truth which can be universally acknowledged.
Another critic points out that Larkin wrote a group of poems which insist harshly on fear in the
face of death, and which are therefore bleak and sinister. In some of these poems, Larkins view
of death is chilling and effective because of the very ordinariness and everyday settings he writes
about. For instance, in the poem Ambulances, he emphasizes the omnipresence of death in the
line: All streets in time are visited. His poem Aubade proves that nothing can defeat or mitigate
the horror and permanence of death.

According to another critic , what gives to the poem Ambulances its impressive authority is its
relentless insistence that all streets in time are visited, and its closing assertion that to be taken
away by an ambulance brings closer what is left to come,/And dulls to distance all we are. This
poem is able to arrive at that comprehensive realism only by concentrating simultaneously on
the particularity of the lives in question, namely the lives of the children on steps or on the road,
and of the women coming from the shops, past smells of different dinners. The reference to
smells of different dinners leads unexpectedly to a moment of heightened intensity, while its
seemingly mundane quality strengthens the sense of common destiny which follows in the line:
so permanent and blank and true. The phrase solving emptiness a little before this line
functions enigmatically and ambiguously since the word solving can be interpreted as both
resolving and dissolving. The poem seems to speak with timeless and universal wisdom, and yet
its ideas are those of a very distinctive agnostic consciousness. Larkins support to late twentieth-
century agnosticism is evident not just in the poems residual religious vocabulary (Closed like
confessions or Poor soul, they whisper.) but also in the conviction that individual lives are
both random and unique. What gives that individual life a claim upon the readers attention
is what cohered in it across/The years. In the absence of a more sustaining and unifying belief,
the speakers in Larkins poems resort to the secular principle of coherence. This notion of
coherence, however, is not only a pseudo-religious principle; it is also an idea which is central to
English political liberalism and to the underlying aspirations of post-war consensus. (It is this
search for coherence that gives scope and momentum to what many commentators regard as
Larkins finest poem. The Whitsun Weddings).