The Death of Aunt Alice

'The Death of Aunt Alice' by Dannie Abse is about the persona remembering his Aunt's funerals and the memories that they shared together. Therefore I believe that the main themes in this poem are loss, love and memory. 

One of the things that I found interesting about this poem was the quotes "relished high catastrophe" and "dressed in black" quite interesting as the first quote suggests that Alice used to stand out from the crowd however the last quote suggests that although she did stand out, we all still end up in the same place which is death. The fact that she stood out can also be supported by "where's your opera ending?" as it suggests that everybody expected more from Alice in her last few days due to the personality and character that she had.

Another thing that I found interesting was the way the persona remembers his Aunt talking about gory deaths in stanza 4 and how in the last stanza the persona says "Disasters that lit your eyes will no more". This suggests that Aunt Alice's life was quite dramatic and drastic but it can also represent the callousness of life. This can be linked to Larkin's poem "Take one home for the kiddies" through the quote "mam, we're playing funerals now" which also shows the callousness of life.