How is disturbing behavior portrayed?

Authors Avatar
How is disturbing behavior portrayed? The poems Stealing, Hitcher, The Laboratory and My last Duchess all give us indications of disturbing behaviour from the personas in the poem. Hitcher, the laboratory and my last duchess have themes of violence and death, whereas stealing gives us an insight into the mind of a kleptomaniac. These themes, along with the language and structure give us an insight into the poets feeling and thoughts at the time, of different disturbing behaviour given off by people.Stealing is about a person who remembers stealing a snowman, just because he knew "children would cry" it goes on to tell us of other things that they stole just because they said " I was so bored I could eat myself “I think this poem portrays a strong sense of disturbing behaviour as the persona cares more for inanimate objects he steals, rather than the people he affects, trying only to justify his actions with the phrase "life’s tough". He obviously cares only for fulfilling his own compulsion and nothing about others.In contrast, the other three poems tell us of murder. Hitcher is about the cold blooded murder of a hitch hiker, which gives us an insight into the extremely disturbing and jealous mind of the speaker. He is envious of the hitch hiker's easy life "following the sun to west from east", even though the characters are very similar- “the same age, give or take a week". He is
Join now!
completely calm and unrepentant towards the situation, backed up by his mimicking phrase of the radio "The outlook for the day was moderate to fair", which could represent his outlook on life after the murder, which is also seen as an example of very disturbing behaviour.The laboratory gives us a glimpse into the lab of a poison maker, where a furious and obviously deranged woman is ordering the making of a poison, to kill her husband’s lover. She is very paranoid, indicated by the repetition of “they” in the poem and she fantasises different ways the lover will die, “to ...

This is a preview of the whole essay