Jim,
It's obvious that you take this personally and think it relates to your own family and experiences. It's a general human experience wider than individuals' "perfect" families. Greek tragedy is based on it. It's certainly true for my family which was very distorted by control freaks and "thou shalt not" rules and snobbery.
There's a great healing quality in black laughter. Most oppressed peoples have a humour that depends on release and reversal of pain. In southern Italy it's jokes about hunger and we all know the Jewish jokes which only Jewish people can make. Surely there are similar Irish jokes? The English middle and upper classes are famously repressed. My family reflected that in spades. They were a mixture of Scottish and English but they feared anything that might seem "common". The colonial context intensified that because like most immigrant families they clung to an outdated model of etiquette and acceptable behaviour. I was raised to be a shocking little snob and was denied contact with my immediate culture. That has always handicapped my poetry. We learn the people's speech while we are children. The poem is a great belly laugh for me. My parents were excellent people and devoted parents. None of it was their fault. Here read the middle stanza of Larkin's poem. I ran away from home when I was eighteen. It was unthinkable that I would have permission to leave. No disloyalty to anyone is involved. Survival is another matter.
Janet
[This message has been edited by Janet Kenny (edited October 10, 2008).]
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