Why Characters in a Variety of Poems Need Violence

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Recommended: Major themes of carol ann duffy's poetry

In this essay I’m going to be comparing and contrasting a range of poems which are ‘Havisham’, ‘Salome’, ‘The Laboratory’, ‘Stealing’ by Carol Ann Duffy, ‘On My First Sonne’ by Ben Johnson and ‘November’ and ‘Hitcher’ by Simon Armitage.

I am going to discuss and explore the reasons for these characters needs of violence, anger and death towards themselves and individuals.

The characters in ‘Havisham’, ‘Salome’ and ‘laboratory’ are all women which have preoccupation with revenge, hate and jealousy.

Duffy presents her poem ‘Havisham’ about an embittered old woman where time has stood still for her because she was jilted on the alter by her ex-fiancé and can’t accept the fact of the state she’s in and now is alone and weeps in her self-pity. Likewise she presents ‘The Laboratory’ about a psychopathic woman whose got the tension or means of killing another woman to get her revenge.

The imagery used in ‘Havisham’ reviews to us of this vigorous, violent and unbridled theme between these poems. ‘I’ve dark green pebbles for eyes’, this metaphor indicates to us that this character is composed or hardened away into this hopeless and livid state.

The more she’s compelled to this state, she reminds herself of the wedding day so the more violent and embittered she becomes as she says, ‘I stab at the wedding cake’.

Likewise in ‘Salome’ she is revelled into her uncontrolled, baric state due to her ‘booze and the fags and the sex. Also ‘Head on a platter’ which portrays to us these murderous, homicidal actions and intentions ‘Salome’ is really capable of committing.

This is similar to ‘The Laboratory’ because this resentful, envious woman somehow conceals her sinister planned intentions and goals which she is capable of accomplishin...

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...em is written in free verse and contains little rhyme, and the irregular number of beats in different lines reflects the emotional instability felt at the subject of the poem.

In conclusion, the messages these poems tell are for example, ‘The Laboratory’ and ‘Havisham’, they show jealousy and envy towards an individual. ‘Hitcher’, ‘Stealing’ and ‘Salome’ are angry on life in general and take out their frustrations on innocent people. ‘On My First Sonne’ and ‘November’ all show deep emotion, resentment, grief and passion to the situation their in. The difference between these poems is the attitudes they hold towards their situations. However the similarities are that the poets have all exaggerated the characters to produce effective poems and at last, all these characters seem to show instability and all have resentment towards someone, their circumstances or God.

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