Jill by Philip Larkin

First published: 1946; revised, 1964

Type of work: Bildungsroman

Time of work: 1940

Locale: Oxford

Principal Characters:

• John Kemp, the protagonist, a naive young student at Oxford
• Christopher Warner, a sophisticated public-school graduate who shares a room with John Kemp
• Elizabeth Dowling, a friend of Christopher Warner
• Gillian (Jill), Elizabeth’s cousin and John’s ideal girl

The Novel

Jill is a novel of education, the familiar tale of a young man’s entrance into the world. The main character, John Kemp, is young, inexperienced, and working-class, the exact opposite of the stereotypical Oxford student. The novel begins with John setting out for the uncertain world of Oxford in the war year of 1940. He immediately displays his immaturity when he throws away his sandwiches because he does not wish the others on the train to see him eating; soon afterward, he sees the others break out their lunches, so he is forced to suffer hunger as well as embarrassment.

When John arrives at Oxford, he finds that he is sharing a room with someone who is as unlike him as possible: Christopher Warner is middleclass, public-school, and supremely confident and sophisticated. Christopher is hosting a tea party using John’s china when John arrives. Christopher is not interested in obeying the rules or conventions; he seems, instead, confident of his place in the world. He is not, however, the guide for whom John is searching to initiate him into the world; rather, Christopher ignores John, and John is tormented by the difference between his world and Christopher’s. John cannot be like Christopher, but he cannot deny his attraction to his world.

John’s early weeks at Oxford are spent reading and outlining books in the way his teacher at Huddlesford had taught him. He is lonely and isolated; his only acquaintance is a young man who is from the same class and background: Whitbread, a Yorkshireman. Whitbread is interested in doing the right thing, in getting on in the world rather than fitting in with a sophisticated set such as that of Christopher Warner. Whitbread is an amusing character; he speaks in cliches and is fiercely dedicated to his own self-interest. John is not willing to enter Whitbread’s world, and he cannot penetrate Christopher’s.

One day, John overhears Christopher describing him as a “scared stuffed little rabbit,” and all of his hopes of becoming a part of Christopher’s world are dashed. In the midst of his anger and shame, John devises a way to counter Christopher’s attitude of superiority by inventing a sister at a public school, Jill. John leaves the letters he has written in Jill’s name around the room for Christopher, and he now has a topic for conversation with him. John’s stratagem does produce a change in Christopher’s attitude; he returns the money that he has borrowed from John and begins treating him more as an equal than before. This creation, however, begins to go beyond the initial purpose of intriguing Christopher. John has a moment of recognition: “Suddenly it was she who was important, she who was interesting, she whom he longed to write about; beside her, he and his life seemed dusty and tedious.” He writes a short story about Jill and then creates a diary of her daily thoughts. John has created his own world so that his problems in the real world no longer seem as important. His difficulties, however, return when he sees his creation come alive on the streets of Oxford.

John confronts his “Jill” and attempts to speak to her, but she rebuffs his approaches. He becomes obsessed with her and spends his time waiting for a glimpse of her. His difficulties become more complex when she is introduced to him as a cousin of Elizabeth and a member of Christopher’s set. Her name is Gillian, and she refuses to be called Jill. John finally has a moment with her, and his invitation to tea is accepted. John dashes around making preparations for the party; he seems finally about to enter that dazzling world he has longed to be a part of. When Elizabeth arrives to tell him that Gillian is not coming and that she is too young to accept such invitations, he is crestfallen. He mopes around for a few days trying to drive the loneliness and isolation out until he hears that his hometown, Huddlesford, has been bombed by the Germans.

When John arrives at Huddlesford, he finds that everything is strange and unfamiliar because of the bombing and his own Oxford experience. He passes by his parents’ house and is relieved to see that it is untouched. He returns to Oxford with a very different attitude: “It [Huddlesford] meant no more to him now, and so it was destroyed: it seemed symbolic, a kind of annulling of his childhood.... Now there is a fresh start for you: you are no longer governed by what has gone before.” After his return, John notices a letter from Elizabeth to Christopher about a party to which she will bring Gillian. John burns the letters and the story he had invented for his Jill and is ready to enter the real world. He sees Gillian with the others and rushes forward to kiss her. Christopher responds by throwing John into a fountain, a very different kind of initiation.

The novel ends with John in the infirmary brooding over his experience. Again, he contrasts his real experiences with “Jill” to his created one, and he believes that they “interlocked” in the dreamworld if not in the real one. He then sees that the distinction is meaningless, since “love died whether fulfilled or unfulfilled.” This perception is extended by John so that he sees that the apparent differences of all opposites are also unreal, and if that is so he is “freed from choice.” John’s parents arrive, and Christopher leaves for the larger world of London with Elizabeth; the opposites suggest a return to childhood and a new freedom. As John has perceived, however, these supposed opposites really mean the same thing: “What did it matter which road he took if they both led to the same place?”

The Characters

John Kemp is crammed with facts and prepared for the scholarship examination a year ahead of time by his teacher, Mr. Crouch. He is the wrong age, the wrong class, and at Oxford at the wrong time. His retreat into fantasy is a way of controlling reality by inventing a world. Reality, however, keeps imposing itself on John’s defenses: Jill comes to life, his hometown is bombed, he is thrown into a fountain. He has left his home and past behind, but he is not yet a part of Oxford. His character is defined by these opposites, but rather than choose one over the other, he suddenly sees that the differences are only apparent.

Christopher Warner is a stereotypical Oxford “hearty”; he is public-school and middle-class and is interested only in drinking and playing sports. He seems to believe that he can exploit whomever he chooses. He copies John’s English notes and essays, and borrows money from his cronies. Oxford seems to be a social playground to him rather than an intellectual experience. His move to London with a mistress at the end of the novel suggests an enlargement of his horizons and, in contrast to John, a perfect adaptation to his environment.

Gillian is a minor character, but she assumes a symbolic importance in the novel. She seems to be a typical middle-class schoolgirl with a natural desire to get closer to the Oxford world. The reader never knows what she is thinking, and she does not change. What changes is John’s perception of her. She is inflated into the ideal by John and then reveals herself to be human and real.

Critical Context

Philip Larkin wrote Jill after he was graduated from Oxford, so it is his first extensive literary work. It was published a few years later, in 1946, and another novel, A Girl in Winter, followed in 1947. Later, in a typically wry manner, Larkin said that he was to have the career of a popular novelist. “I’d had visions of myself writing five hundred words a day for six months, shoving the result off to the printer and going to live on the Cote d’Azur, uninterrupted except for the correction of proofs.” He could never write that third novel, however, claiming that the reason was that he “didn’t know enough about people.” The reason was more likely that he discovered that his real gift was for poetry rather than fiction.

Larkin was one of the most important writers in a group that came to be known as “The Movement.” The writers of The Movement (Donald Davie, Kingsley Amis, and John Wain, along with Larkin, are the major figures) insisted on clarity and precision in place of “emotional fervor and wounded sensibility.” While they rejected Romantic excess, however, they also were against the obscurities of modernism and experimental techniques. Jill is an example of many of the tenets of The Movement in its traditional form, its detailed and precise style, and its persistent puncturing of Romantic illusions.

Larkin has stated that the publication of Jill “aroused no public comment.” Yet, as critics have concentrated on Larkin’s poetry, they have begun to discuss and comment more on Jill. Some of these critics, especially Simon Petch, emphasize the “working-class” elements in the novel, an important part of such novels as John Braine’s Room at the Top (1957). Others, such as Bruce K. Martin, stress the theme of “disillusion,” a theme that is prominent in Larkin’s poetry. Perhaps the only negative comments are those that focus on Larkin’s “poetic” and almost obsessive attention to details. This may be an indication that Larkin’s appropriate form was poetry and not the novel.

Bibliography

Martin, Bruce K. Philip Larkin, 1978.

Motion, Andrew. Philip Larkin, 1982.

Petch, Simon. The Art of Philip Larkin, 1982.

Timms, David. Philip Larkin, 1973.