To what extent is "Essential Beauty" characteristic of the collection as a whole?

... To what extent is "Essential Beauty" characteristic of the collection as a whole? "Essential Beauty" is a poem in which Larkin explores the view of unattainable objects and how illusion does not match reality. Larkin describes billboards to convey messages of the difficulty shared by working classes in comparison to luxuries other classes can afford. This poem contains only two stanzas and the contrast between them of reality and fantasy is very obvious. This technique is used by Larkin to emphasize the contrast between reality and fantasy. The rhythm and mood at the beginning of the poem is dull, due the fact that the opening sentence has been made deliberately slow, and is used to good effect by Larkin. By creating such a slow introduction to the poem, the emphasis of the verb "shine" is strong. The effect here is to suggest the layer upon layer of advertising, which the poor are

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