The nuclear family has stood as an imperative concept of civilization for many ages. Through the ideology of nature versus nurture, children often inherit similar mannerisms, skills, and attributes to their parents. However, in the eyes of Phillip Larkin society has been utterly mistaken. The speaker in Larkin’s “This Be the Verse” advises the reader to escape society’s cycle of individual degradation for it will plague mankind. According to Philip Larkin mankind is cursed by familial dysfunction. Upon being brought into existence the speaker states that parents plague their offspring by “[filling] us with the faults they had” (3). Thus, humans inherit their parents flaws and accumulate more as time progresses. The very people who are intended
