High Windows

The “long slide” (Line 8) appears twice in “High Windows”: once in each of the reflections of the observing elders on the younger generation. Its first appearance seems somewhat sinister in relation to the other lines in its stanza. After discussing the sexual revolution in jarringly inhuman terms (the “outdated combine harvester” [Line 7], for example), Larkin concludes the second stanza with the following line: “And everyone young going down the long slide” (Line 8). In relation to agricultural/industrial imagery, a hint of the slaughterhouse lurks in this line’s connotations. Larkin sets this phrase apart from its syntactical whole, isolating the image and pairing it with technological language to introduce a hint of menace. However, the beginning of the next stanza quickly reassures the reader of the image’s positivity: “going down the long slide // To happiness, endlessly” (Lines 8-9).

The long slide is similarly complex in its second appearance in the poem. While the image no longer seems sinister after the reader has already contextualized it after the second and third stanzas, its reappearance undermines hopefulness. The speaker initially hopes (or, rather, “know[s]” [Line 4]) that the new social freedoms will allow the new generation to finally go “down the long slide // To happiness” (Lines 8, 9), to the “paradise // Everyone old has dreamed of all their lives (Lines 4, 5).