Karla Lopez
Philip Larkin the author of Wires created a parallel of a society with a demonstration of
humankind allowing fear to blocking them from pursuing their deepest desires. Larkin portrayed
Wires with the tone of an indifferent and ambiguous persona with the lack of the first person. The
shift from “widest prairies” in the opening line to “widest senses” in the closing line supports the
idea that freedom is an imaginary situation with no real existence. The easy quatrain lines dispatch
a sense of authoritative enlightenment, enabling the poem to obtain the look of a polished fable.
Larkin’s usage of the word “blunder” in the second stanza advises the reader to picture a
thoughtless creature walking straight toward a wire fencing, oblivious to the electricity. Larkin
uses a variety of imagery to emphasize his thesis on human beings. While Larkin used the cows
as a metaphor, alluding towards the unreliable qualities of a human being. Larkin uses a handful
of other poetic techniques. Alliteration would be another literary device Larkin in the first stanza,
using the words “stray,” “steers,” and “scenting.” They may not be set up next to one another,
but he repeated the beginning letter various times throughout the poem.
Larkin’s purpose of Wires was to start off with an adventurous, hopeful, yet youthful tone