Comparing 4 Poems- Violence Essay Example

"Hitcher" By Simon Armitage, "Education For Leisure" By Carol Anne Duffy, "My Last Duchess" and "The Lab" by Robert Browning are all poems that deal with violence or the prospect of violence. ‘The Laboratory’ is a dramatic monologue about a woman who has discovered her husband is having an affair with two other women. She is plotting to poison both of the mistresses. My Last Duchess’ is also a dramatic monologue in which the Duke is telling his new bride father’s representative about a portrait of his last wife and how he had to have her killed because he did not think she behaved like a Duchess or a wife should. ‘Hitcher’ tells the story of a disturbed man who picks up a hitchhiker, then brutally murder him and also seems satisfied about it. ‘Havisham’ is a monologue using a female voice who talks about emotions and memories of a woman who was jilted by a man on her wedding day. I will compare and contrast the ways violence is shown throughout the poems. The actual event of murder or violence is very cleverly portrayed in the laboratory and the hitcher. In the laboratory the woman knows what she is doing is wrong and evil and still is excited about it makes her character seem more sinister. Alteration is used when making the poison, 'pound at thy powder’ this is to shows her anger and the fact that it is oxymoronic makes it sound more violent. The woman clearly gets joy out of making something so evil, the poison as she says ‘i am not in haste’ this shows that she wants to savour making it, this is very cold and dark. She thinks the poison is so special because she says ‘...whence such gold oozing come!’ so it is like gold to her. As the poem carries on it get faster as she is more anxious for the poison. The women is single minded and is driven by revenge as that is all she wants. She portrays her jealousy violently by saying ‘and her breast and her arms and her hands, drop dead!’ as these thing once admired will be gone. She wants the women to be in pain