The poem itself addresses the concept of the "young family" and their communal, or ordinary, lifestyle, and maintains a cynical tone of society's conformity. The title "Afternoons" in itself has connotations of life; a stage where the "mothers" mentioned have not reached the "evening" of old age but have outgrown their youthful ways. The stage these mothers are in is juxtaposed with the fact that they are still “young,” far from the “afternoon” of their lives. However, through the imagery Larkin uses throughout the poem, their lives seem bleak and unfulfilled. Already their 'summer is fading' and already 'behind them, at intervals' there seem to be the milestones of the life spent long ago. The vivid imagery in the phrase "an estate full of washing on the line" is indicative of ordinary experience in Britain. The female population was expected to settle down and raise families and in one line Larkin sums up that monotonous life in much of post-war Britain. Such monotony is also captured perfectly in the lines “Young mothers gather / Set their children free.” The formality of the word "assemble" gives the impression that lives have become regimented and no longer possess the spontaneity of past generations. This is also expressed through the fact that children are "liberated"; allowed to leave the mundane and ordinary life they lead. Critic Sisir Kumar Chatterjee claimed that through 'Afternoons' Larkin demonstrated that the British people "... have been reduced to little more than the sum of their prosaic household chores". His entirely accurate interpretation is echoed in the last two lines of the poem. These two lines, along with the shortened syntax at the end of "Afternoons," provide the poem with a sad and sympathetic inflection. The people in question were put “aside from their own lives” and became mere spectators