Post #3

The Fear of Nothing

The sure extinction that we travel to
And shall be lost in always. Not to be here,
Not to be anywhere,
And soon; nothing more terrible, nothing more true.

This is a special way of being afraid
No trick dispels. Religion used to try,
That vast, moth-eaten musical brocade
Created to pretend we never die,
And specious stuff that says No rational being
Can fear a thing it will not feel, not seeing
That this is what we fear - no sight, no sound,
No touch or taste or smell, nothing to think with,
Nothing to love or link with,
The anesthetic from which none come round.
- Philip Larkin


This poem is an expression of the narrator's fear of death. It is broken into two parts, which is significant. The first section of the poem can be seen as the introduction. It shows the meaning of the rest of the poem. Although abstract and ambiguous, the meaning of this introduction can be inferred. It points out the inescapable fate that we all have...death. The attitude toward death is sad, expressing a fear of nothingness.

The second section of this poem builds up to the narrator's reason for this fear of death. By paraphrasing this section, we can see with more clarity what the narrator is saying: There is a special fear that nothing can drive away. Religion has tried to drive it away by saying that we don't actually die. Some have tried rationalizing, saying that you can't fear something you can't feel. But that is the very things we fear...no sight, sound, feeling, taste, or smell. Nothing to think, love, or connect with. We are nothing when we die. It's like taking an anesthetic but never waking up. The fear is not the process of dying but the nothingness which is death. The narrator takes what other people say about death, how they try to comfort the fears, and points out the idiocy of the rationalizations. The narrator thinks that the religious beliefs of an afterlife are ridiculous and were only thought up to answer the many questions about death. Just like the Ancient Romans changed Christianity to match their lifestyle, religions have created the thought of an afterlife to cope with their fears. Nothing can comfort the fear of the inevitable nothingness.

The narrator is able to draw this conclusion with the supporting examples of religion and rational thinking. When the reader looks back at the poem, after breaking it apart, he or she can understand that this very conclusion is what the introduction, the first section of the poem, is saying. Larkin did not directly state what the poem was about. Figurative language, ambiguous thought, and the mood of the poem make the reader question the meaning of the art work. When that reader breaks it apart, it is made clear what the issue is.