When working, it is likely that one will come across many who are more entitled than themselves. The type of people who have power and control over their employees is demonstrated in ‘You Will Be Hearing From Us Shortly’, where an undeniably strong narrative voice is present – becoming the focal point of the poem – putting themselves in the spotlight and overriding other speakers, the candidate in this case, similar to what might occur in a working environment. In ‘Toads’, the narrator seems to struggle with a life revolving around work, and is disgusted by its features and properties similar to that of a toad. The opinions of the speaker are easily understood and to the point, reinforcing the strong narrative voice that Larkin tries to create. …show more content…
This sets the scene for the poem, placing an image of a toad in the mind of readers from the very beginning. The use of “squat” is interesting as it suggests a particular unpleasantry, utilising imagery - perhaps of excretion – to describe how Larkin feels about work. He wishes to “drive the brute off”, proposing once again that work is undesirable. In the third stanza, perhaps as a tool for emphasis, Larkin uses a large amount of alveolar consonants, starting many of the words with an ‘l’. This could be a simple method for stressing the amount of people who live off of their intelligence, as this formulates a kind of endless list.
The second stanza captures the magnitude of work relative to its reward. He writes, “Six days of the week it soils,” metaphorically insinuating that work ruins his day, six out of seven days of the week. It is overwhelming, just as is suggested in ‘You Will Be Hearing From Us Shortly’, where questions are piled up, creating pressure, with no visible answer. Larkin refers to work having a “sickening poison” and that it’s all just so he can pay for some bills, proposing that work degrades the mind and body just as a poison does, and it really holds little value for the effort and pain the narrator goes