Confusion and Instable Emotions in Poetry

In this essay I shall be identifying the comparisons and contrasting the differences between the following six poems which I have read and analysed in my English lessons. ‘Havisham’ (Duffy), ‘The Laboratory’ (Browning), ‘November’ (Armitage), ‘Stealing’ (Duffy), ‘On My First Sonne’ (Johnson) and ‘Education for Leisure’ (Duffy). I will discuss how each poem has connotations of death and express violence through powerful use of language, structure and imagery. I will go into depth on why the characters behave the way in which they do, what they blame it on and why they hold this accountable. Even though there are differences in the characters I will be exploring how confusion is caused due to the instability of their emotions such as grief, jealousy, anger and madness.

‘Education for Leisure’ is a poem about an individual who feels that they have been neglected by the world for too long and decides that it is now time for them to make a stand and become known by the world. They are a psychotic character who feels undervalued as a result of their treatment from others. They feel it is time to ‘play God’, It shocks the reader at the end as they are directly spoken to by the person in this poem as they say, ‘I touch your arm,’ this frightens the reader because it is the first time that they are addressed directly by the narrator. It seems that this person has a condition of some kind which gives him the compulsive urge to channel his anger through violence. ‘I’ is repeated throughout the poem to show the characters egotism, also ‘Signing on’ shows that this character feels that they should be giving out autographs. Duffy may intend to show that the fact that this person is unemployed is putting them under stress which in turn leads ...

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...first sonnes’s attitude is sad, this is a time in their life where they are feeling at their worst as they have been grieving the recent death of a child close to their heart. They feel that they will never again emotionally attach themselves anything ever again as they feel that this will only result in them feeling the same heartache. The message that ‘The laboratory’, ‘Havisham’, ‘Stealing’ and ‘Education for leisure’ are trying to put across is a message of hatred, resentment and violence these people lack the basic emotions that make human beings sane therefore putting them in a class of insanity. Where as the message that ‘On my first sonne’ and ‘November’ put across is one grief as they are losing a loved one, one of sadness because life is dull and nothing is seeming to make it seem more lively and one of passion because feel strongly for what they believe.