Essay Questions

What is the poet's general feeling about the city of Slough?

Betjemen makes his total dislike of the city of Slough very apparent from the first line of the poem. He doesn't just dislike it; he holds it, and the people who live there, in absolute contempt. Part of this attitude comes from Betjemen's own sensibilities towards what he sees as the urbanization of his beloved green and pleasant land. He is a traditionalist and dislikes change in general. He feels that the better things about England are the rolling hills, wide spaces and expanses of countryside. The constant encroachment by city folks who over-develop and over-industrialize a place they don't live in themselves is what generates most of his bad feeling.

He also seems to hate the local governmental officers who are at the forefront of this over-development. He feels that they are taking advantage of the people of Slough, and that they are sleazy men who dupe their own wives, the women they keep in Slough, and hurt everyone, but come out smelling of roses every time. They are not welcome because they bring their ways to disrupt the quite innocence of the way Slough used to be. His feeling is that what Slough used to be is now all gone, irreparably changed and damaged by the men who use war as an excuse to feather their own nests.

Is "Slough" an anti-war poem or an anti-establishment poem?

Although Slough is clearly anti-war, in that Betjemen sees the war as the practical reason for the final urbanization of the city, it is actually more of an anti-establishment poem than an anti-war one. This is probably why so many angry young rock bands of the 'seventies used the poem as the basis for their anti-establishment lyrics.

The main target of Betjemen's anger are the local government officails whom he feels take advantage of situations like war, and feather their own nests whilst the soldiers on the front line eat low-grade food out of cans and live in makeshift conditions. The "man with the double chin" is over-indulged and clearly eating very well (how else would he have a double chin?) and he always cheats and lies to get his way, always winning, never coming out behind. He hates the way in which men like this, who generally have wives back in London, use the women in Slough, break their hearts, and leave a trail of tears behind them, without caring, or having to make any recompense for what they have done.

He also makes it plain that it is the management level men that he despises, not the clerks in the office who push paper and do what their bosses tell them, all the while hating them and the way they are behaving.