The poem
Why should I let the toad work Squat on my life? Can't I use my wit as a pitchfork And drive the brute off?
Six days of the week it soils With its sickening poison - Just for paying a few bills! That's out of proportion.
Lots of folk live on their wits: Lecturers, lispers, Losels, loblolly-men, louts- They don't end as paupers;
Lots of folk live up lanes With fires in a bucket, Eat windfalls and tinned sardines- they seem to like it.
Their nippers have got bare feet, Their unspeakable wives Are skinny as whippets - and yet No one actually starves.
Ah, were I courageous enough To shout Stuff your pension! But I know, all too well, that's the stuff That dreams are made on:
For something sufficiently toad-like Squats in me, too; Its hunkers are heavy as hard luck, And cold as snow,
And will never allow me to blarney My way of getting The fame and the girl and the money All at one sitting.
I don't say, one bodies the other One's spiritual truth; But I do say it's hard to lose either, When you have both.
This poem is by a guy that's fed up with work and how he works for 6 days a week and gets nothing. It has 2 "toads", or burdens. One is work, the other one is I dont know, but think it might be lack of courage, or lack of initiative. That's as far as I can go with it.
"Toads" is very much like "Toads Revisited" in the Whitsun Weddinds collection.To understand "Toads" better,I'd advise looking at "Toads Revisited". Hope this helps, Paul
I licked a toad once and it sent me a trippin!!!!!
This is generally a poem about how unfair life is. The persona is complaining about the fact that he works so hard and there are people in the world who survive with having to do any mnaual labour what so ever. They get by on wit and flattery. He draws reference to some occupations which he does not consider as work and also to certain types of people who do not work as much as he does but still manage to live. However he reveals that is too honest and down to earth to stoop to flattery and misuse of wit to acheive greatness and everthing he may want. And also that it is hard to lose either one of the qualities of wit or willingness to work when you have both.
Larkin chose to work all of his life as a librarian, he enjoyed working and showed contempt for those who dodged 'the toad work/by being stupid or weak'as in Toads Revisited, the companion peice to Toads. The narrator in Toads Revisited also comments that walking in the park should feel better than work, but doesn't. The first stanza of Toads is Larkin adopting a persona and in the later stanza's when he talks about…
Read the whole commentLarkin chose to work all of his life as a librarian, he enjoyed working and showed contempt for those who dodged 'the toad work/by being stupid or weak'as in Toads Revisited, the companion peice to Toads. The narrator in Toads Revisited also comments that walking in the park should feel better than work, but doesn't. The first stanza of Toads is Larkin adopting a persona and in the later stanza's when he talks about the barefoot children and thin wifes and says no one actually starves, the irony becomes evident. When one of Larkin's friends became a freelance journalist Larkin arrived on his doorstep on his first day to check his friend was actually working. It is dangerous to assume that the persona in a poem is Larkin, to know nothing about Larkin, to miss the subtleties in the poem and then draw conclusions.
TOADS ARE SEXY. TOADS HAVE SEX. PEE PEE
Are you serious? These have to be the most rediculous comments I have ever read. I'm disappointed that this site approved them.
I think that the second unnamed "toad" in this poem is honesty or integrity.
Or maybe the "toad" is actually cowardice. I'm not really sure which.
Fire in the bucket may accomodate some
But it rendors my pitchfork ill-used and blunt
And whilst the toad has an obnoxious image
He's saving our souls from carnage and pillage
.....Isn't He?
What does fire in a bucket represent? Is this phrase used in everyday language? If it is, what does it mean?
I think this poem is about being envious of the lifestyles of those people who are able to throw caution to the wind and live footloose and free. He deals with his envy by seeing their "unspeakable wives" and barefoot children as an affront to civilization. The toad that squats in him is the need for security and fear of the unknown. He recognizes in himself a slave to the rat-race, albeit enslaved by his own…
Read the whole commentI think this poem is about being envious of the lifestyles of those people who are able to throw caution to the wind and live footloose and free. He deals with his envy by seeing their "unspeakable wives" and barefoot children as an affront to civilization. The toad that squats in him is the need for security and fear of the unknown. He recognizes in himself a slave to the rat-race, albeit enslaved by his own character. In the final sentence he says that if you have the toad work squatting on your life and the toad inside yourself needing the security, it's hard to be rid of either.
In "Toads Revisited", Larkin dismisses his dream of escaping the toads by comparing his secure and predictable life to those "dodging the toad work by being stupid or weak." Between the two poems he has changed from admiration of what he sees as courage (really just living in the moment and being carefree) to contempt for stupid, weak failures.
One interpretation of the two poems is that, in order to live with himself, in the second poem he has to squash the dream of shouting "Stuff your pension" or he would always regret not having tried.
However, I also wonder if the poems were written at different times of year. In "Toads", I can see Larkin stuck at work in the library on a beautiful summer's day, dreaming of escaping, whereas in "Toads Revisited" he mentions the lights coming on at four. I can see him writing this in winter as a rebuttal to his previous poem, sitting in his warm office at the library staring out at the cold darkness at the end of the day. Maybe even hurrying home with his collar turned up, pitying those too weak and stupid to survive the rat-race and create a home for themselves. In the summer it's easy to be envious of those who don't work but come the winter it's all worth it!