The large cool store - Phillip Larkin - improved

The large cool store selling cheap clothes

Set out in simple sizes plainly
(Knitwear, Summer Casuals, Hose,
In browns and greys, maroon and navy)
Conjures the weekday world of those

Who leave at dawn low terraced houses
Timed for factory, yard and site.
But past the heaps of shirts and trousers
Spread the stands of Modes For Night:
Machine-embroidered, thin as blouses,

Lemon, sapphire, moss-green, rose
Bri-Nylon Baby Dolls and Shorties
Flounce in clusters. To suppose
They share that world, to think their sort is
Matched by something in it, shows

How separate and unearthly love is,
Or women are, or what they do,
Or in our young unreal wishes
Seem to be: synthetic, new,
And natureless in ecstasies.

How does Larkin explore the ideas of inequality between social classes?

Phillip Larkin wrote the poem 'The Large Cool' store in the 1950s, this poem is a description of Marks and Spencer’s shops at the time.  In the 1950s, M&S was a shop similar to Primark that sold cheap, slightly dated but fashionable clothes.  Throughout this poem Larkin explores the idea of inequality between the social classes by showing that the working class have a false conciousness.

The word ‘cool’ used in the title of this poem could have two meanings. The first of these is that ‘cool’ means fashionable and that the clothes this shop is selling will make the people buying them fashionable, when the reality is that these clothes only create a false consciousness and do not gain the working class power. Marxist critics would be cynical about the fashion zeitgeist of the 1950s as they would believe that if people were too obsessed with the idea of fashion and spent their time trying to gain power through materialistic things then they wouldn't see the issues with the class system. The hierarchy of the class system is believed by marxist critics to be a big problem within society. Marxist critics aim for the class system to be abolished and they feel that by society being materialistic this can't happen. Larkin used the word 'cool' ironically to show that by buying these clothes it wouldn't make the purchaser cool but instead they would just be buying into to the ideologies of the materialistic society and creating a false consciousnesses that they had power, despite being of a lower class. The other is that ‘cool’ means cold which has connotations meaning that the store is heartless cynical and an unpleasant place for the people who shop there. This represents the wider society, showing that the society in the 1950s was a capitalist society where the bourgeoisie continued to get rich whilst the proletariat worked hard to give their money away for materialistic objects. Marxist critics believe that all decades were capitalist and would therefore feel that this line only proves their argument.  The word ‘cool’ emphasises that Larkin believed that society at the time was a consumerist society in which people bought things with the belief that it would gain them power, but instead they continued to increase their inferiority to the bourgeoisie by losing money that is then given to the upper class who control all means of production.

The language used is ‘The large cool store’ is simplistic with mainly monosyllabic words used to reflect the look and the feel of department stores.This could also be done to reflect that the working class are 'simple' as they wouldn't have had access to education due to their class. This is an example of alienation and shows that it doesn't matter what material things they own, they can never gain power because their social class prevented them from accessing services such as education that the upper classes had access to. 

 Larkin uses the contrast in colours between the ‘brown and greys’ of weekday clothes and the more glamorous ‘lemon, sapphire, moss green’ of the nightwear to highlight that society is materialistic and superficial and that advertising create the false consciousness that people can escape their mundane lives. These unreal wishes are created because of the commodification of these clothes from the proletariats which makes them feel more powerful. The bourgeoisie sells these clothes to the proletariat to make them believe they are gaining power, however they are just increasing the power of the bourgeoisie by giving them money.

Furthermore, in his description of these clothes, he describes the women’s clothes in much more detail than the men’s, describing their nightwear as ‘Machine-embroidered, thin as blouses’ which could imply that Larkin thinks that women have no depth to them and sees them also as, ‘thin’. This introduces another critical interpretation from a feminist angle; feminist critics would view this as a way to show a patriarchal society in which women are inferior to men and are marginalised from society because of their gender.

The working class are shown as being alienated and marginalised by society in this poem, the line ‘Timed for factory, yard and site’ tells the reader that the people who shop in this store are the working class as they work in factories where they have to do hard labour in order to make money to survive. Due to the social class of these people, they aren’t educated meaning that they can’t get a well-paid job; this is what keep them alienated from the upper class. The alienation of this class from society means that they are powerless and are controlled by the bourgeoisies as they control the means of production. Larkin shows how mundane the lives of the working class in the structure of his poem. By using an ABABA rhyme scheme, the reader understands more about the lives of the working class as it represents the simplicity and repetitiveness of their work.  This shows marginalisation as the people who are doing all the work will never lead similar lives to the bourgeoisie and the work makes them feel unimportant as they never receive the rewards. When reading this poem, Andrew Motion asked the question ‘the argument is whether the shoppers are deluding themselves when they buy something … or are they going beyond the limits which society sets for them?’. This comment highlights the false consciousness created by the upper class so that the proletariats feel as if they are gaining power, which Motion describes as delusional. In addition, it represents materialistic determinism whereby society views people as having more power or being more important based on what they own or wear, an example of consumerism. The feelings of feeling included within the same society as the upper class only alienates the working class further but also from themselves.

Another use of structure to show how mundane and drab the lives of the working class are is the use of emjambment between stanzas in this poem. Larkin uses emjambment to make the rythym of the poem slow and dreary, showing the reader that this is how the lives of the proletariats are. This is a contrast to the more exciting lives of the bourgeoise, another way in which Larkin explores the inequality between the class system of the 1950s. This would have been viewed by the marxist critics as a representation of the treatment of the different classes. 

To summarise, this poem comments on the illusion that the working class have, that they think they are a better person if the dress better like the bourgeoisie, creating a materialistic class system. Larkin shows within this poem the treatment of the lower class and mocks the live they lead to highlight the inequality between the social classes.