Comparing stealing and the laboratory

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Comparing Stealing and The laboratory

In my opinion ‘Stealing’ and ‘The Laboratory’ explore different themes, but they do have one thing in common which is the characters in the poems do not feel one bit guilty. The main themes in ‘Stealing’ are boredom and loneliness, whilst the main themes in ‘The Laboratory’ are revenge and jealousy.

 ‘Stealing’ is about a boy or a girl who explains how he/she once stole a snowman and destroys it by kicking its head in. From reading the poem I gathered that the poem is describing a boy performing these mental acts. Throughout the poem it describes how he steals pointless things like cars and breaks into houses just to “have a look”. At this part in the poem I think the boy did not have a normal upbringing and was a lonely child, so he breaks into houses just to see what a normal household looks like. Also if the boy did not have a normal upbringing this is probably the explanation for the random acts of violence.  On the other hand, ‘The Laboratory’ is about a woman who sees the apothecary to get poison to kill a love rival. She takes pleasure in watching its preparation and it’s determined to enjoy her revenge. This is similar to ‘Stealing’ as both poems get the thrill out of unpleasant things; killing her lover and knowing that children will cry over the snowman.

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        I believe that ‘Stealing’ and ‘The Laboratory’ have completely different structures. In ‘Stealing’ there are 5 stanzas whereas in ‘The Laboratory’ had 12 stanzas. I feel as though ‘Stealing’ is set out like an interview, as if he was in trouble with the police, or even his parents. At the end of every stanza in ‘The Laboratory’ there is a full stop, this emphasises the woman’s certainty of her plan and this makes it more chilling. On the other hand, both poems have direct speech which creates impact. Also stealing has a cliff-hanger ending and ends with a rhetorical ...

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