London And Havisham Comparison Essay

Carol Ann Duffy and William Blake present the impact of betrayal especially the fatal illness it leaves behind on the narrators. Duffy, however, explains sickness through a single character whereas Blake looks at multiple people.
‘London’ for instance describes the brutal exploitation of the church towards the civilians in the streets of London whereas Duffy’s poem Havisham similarly evokes heartache, loss but not murderous intention like Havisham does, after the narrator’s fiancé left her at the altar. However, the two poems explore in the depth the feelings of immobility and lack of control of their own lives which leads them to realise these changes that have been inflicted on them cannot be altered.
Although Duffy’s poem is intertextual piece extracted from the novel ‘Great Expectations’ by Charles Dickens character, Miss Havisham, her character here gives insight to her mental instability and her lack awareness of that fact. The first stanza starts with the words

He so eloquently mentions the ‘mark in every face’ connoting the similarities of those individuals around him, followed by ‘marks of weakness...woe’ portraying the depressing situation the character is surrounded with (the people around him are deeply scarred by the despair). Blake purposely uses imagery to clearly justify the feelings of the civilians around him which mirrors his own dismay, again the cold harsh reality around him. Blake takes the reader on a sensuous journey that describes the dangers of what the plutocracy has created, how it seeps through the people around him. He constantly repeats the term ‘I hear’ to emphasise the repetitiveness that surrounds him and how he is tired of it all. Overall this poem explains the poison that has befallen on him and those around him. Furthermore, this poem portrays his sickness of the streets of London and the sickness of