A Commentary On Faith Healing

A Commentary On Faith Healing

A commentary on “Faith Healing” by Philip Larkin

In “Faith Healing” the poet describes a scene in which an American faith healer gives words of comfort to a congregation of women suffering from a range of physical ailments; each of these women then go about their own business and are, in many cases, uplifted and moved by the words of the healer. The process of the healer giving soothing words to each of these women is portrayed to be like a mechanical process which is standardized and uniform, which demonstrates that the poet in critical of the remedial words of the holy-man which serve to do little but give his flock false hope. Larkin wonders why the women need these blessings and then in the final stanza he considers each individual need for love in their lives and talks about “life lived according to love”. The poet’s use of emotive and sensuous language as well as imagery conveys the emotional power of the scene and enables him to voice his criticisms of the event unfolding.

The poet uses sensuous language to describe the healer and present him as a paternal, perhaps even God-like, figure. He “stands upright” and has “silver hair, dark suit, white collar” which suggests that he is an upstanding gentleman who is a pillar of strength for his congregation and community. His “silver hair” reveals his advanced years and we could therefore assume that he is wise and his “dark suit” and “white collar” suggest a degree of purity and professionalism. On the face of things women come to him for a bless in but in truth they queue before, a caring father-like figure, in the hope that he will make them feel loved or at least significant. After his words of comfort they “sheepishly stray”, such imagery of a religious congregation as a flock of sheep is common, and we are told of the effect of his words on the women. The women weep “with deep hoarse tears, as if a kind of dumb and idiot child within them still survives to re-awake at kindness” which not only...