A Scene From Married Life

This is a poem about his wife. The poem is undoubtedly about the struggles that him and his wife has had to go through, he shares similar views to Larkin to me this just reminded me about how Larkin was so anti marriage and marriages never work sort of attitude although this is not what Abse is trying to say but he is just sort of answering the views that Larkin has put out there. Because this shows that love and marriage isn't always plain sailing and their is daily struggles. The key themes in this poem are love. But I think Abse portrays this argument in quite a childish manor and it does end up being some what comical. Abse uses the word 'squabble' and to me this just makes me think of two children arguing over a toy or something, this word doesn't really show any hatred that they have towards one another is child like. But in the same stanza the word 'verbal revenge' is used to me this seems more adult like and more argumentative because it makes the argument seem like some sort of competition. 'Revenge' is quite a nasty word to me it is a word you would use for someone you hate, or someone that has caused you pain and hurt you. That word would be a better word to sum up the situation because they are probably shouting names and probably doing it out of anger and not spite. I think this poem shows the other side of love than what Larkin's poems do, Larkin makes it out to be that love isn't nice because it doesn't always work out. But here Abse shows that despite all the bitterness and nastiness that it can still work because in the end it is all okay.
In stanza 6 we see Abse coming to realization of how important family and his children are to him. ' I swivelled for a last winsome longshot, saw on the high cliff my wife dressed in blue and all of the world true and desirable. With surrendering waves crawled to the shore.' to me the word 'surrender' just shows his love to her because the moment he sees her he just knows that there is no point in arguments and gives in and gives up despite all the things they have said about each other. Also we see here that Joan Abse's wife is dressed in blue. Blue is a colour that you would represent with calmness and maybe forgiveness so here you see that she is also there for the same reason because she loves him and wants them to be okay.