High Windows

Philip Larkin opens “High Windows” with a subordinating conjunction, “When” (Line 1). By initiating the stanza in this way, Larkin generates momentum for the reader. The first three lines are all part of this subordinate clause, propelling forward the reader forward until they encounter the implied "when that, then this." The subordinate clause in question is an observation by the speaker who is implied to be Larkin. The speaker “see[s] a couple of kids” (Line 1) and assumes they are “fucking” (Line 2), using either “pills or wearing a diaphragm” as contraceptives (Line 3). Perhaps the most notable element of this observation is the use of the obscenity which a reader may not expect to encounter in a poem—particularly as soon as its second line. The shockingly casual use of the term mirrors the shockingly casual approach to sex (for the time) that Larkin is discussing. In this way, the poem introduces its subject while demonstrating the speaker’s feelings in the reader’s own reaction to the poem’s language.

While the jarring use of obscenity so early in the poem may appear to imply a negative view of these new sexual mores, the final line of the stanza instead states the speaker “know[s] this is paradise” (Line 4).