Comparing and contrasting

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 Comparing and contrasting

“Porphyria’s Lover” and “The Laboratory”

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By

Stuart Hamilton

     

The opening of “Porphyria’s Lover” gives a sullen, depressing description of the weather, which then creates the mood for the whole poem. The storm is both metaphorical and physical because it represents the storm going on outside and the storm going on in the narrator’s mind. The image we get from the wind is violent which prepares us for the narrator’s mind. Ironic juxtaposition is used here because it blends the lines about the storm to the storm in his mind.

“ It tore the elm-tops down for spite”

     The next few lines describe Porphyria. The word “glided” tells us that the lover already sees her as above human, as a sort of spirit and her entrance is magical. The poet changes the word order as she arrives to show that it is a point of climax.

“When glided in Porphyria”

 We can tell at this point that there is a lot of love present because when she arrives his cottage warms up not only because she starts the fire but because she comes in and it makes him all happy and to him it brightens up his cottage. His love for her takes up his whole life.

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     On the other hand in “The Laboratory” the narrator’s life is full of hate for her rival who has taken her lover so she tries to kill her. She puts on a glass mask to protect her from the fumes, which already tells us that this place is not very safe. The phrase “devil’s smithy” tells us that she is in an evil place where bad things are made which contrasts against where her lover thinks she is which is at the church. This tells us that she knows she is doing wrong whereas in “Porphyria’s Lover” the ...

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The writer achieves some interesting comparisons between the poems, but this essay could afford to analyse areas of both texts in more detail, including more quotations and commenting further on the contexts in which they were written. ***