He is proud of his driving “and didn’t even swerve” This illuminates that he is thinking quite highly of himself in this situation and he feels that he is in total control. It is quite a dramatic change from the beginning of the poem where he feels value less. It also shows that he is not thinking about the victim and their pain but on himself. It indicates that he has no regrets.
He is very casual about violence “I dropped it into third” This conveys that he believes the murder to be a very relaxed and an everyday act. He does not feel that taking away someone’s life is a major occurrence. His attitude towards the killing is casual, this is shown by the verse it is placed into – while talking about murder he is not hesitant to mention about how he changes gear in his car, as this is a very ordinary thing to do.
There are two sides to the same person “We were the same age, give or take a week” Perhaps the hitchhiker is the same person as the killer only they are two sides to one person. The hitcher is the person he wishes to be. He envies the hitcher, the poem conveys the sense of want and longing to change and be someone different. It leads the audience to think that there is a good and bad side to everyone and it is up to you of whom you want to be.
Education for leisure is also a dramatic monologue where the character of a boy is speaking. He is bored “Grey with boredom” This although used in the poem to describe the weather it also mirrors how he is feeling. He is bored and tedious and has nothing to do with his time.
Feels undervalued “They don’t appreciate my autograph” This highlights to the reader that although he thinks highly of himself others do not. By the way he says autograph he hints that he is some kind of celebrity and he believes that he should be treated with more respect than everybody else. This conveys that he is very arrogant and he has a deep longing to be important and known so that people can look up to him for once.
He is a failure “I am a genius. I could be anything at all, with half the chance” This indicates that he has not achieved anything in his life to be proud of. He believes that he has the potential to be anything if only he had the chance; he is blaming other people for his mistakes. This conveys that he regrets his life so far because he has not accomplished anything.
He hates his ordinary life “It is an ordinary day, a sort of grey with boredom stirring” This hints that he feels his life is far from interesting, there is no excitement. He is bored with his life and envies the lives of others.
He is extremely arrogant “I am a genius, I could be anything at all, with half the chance” he seems to think of himself very highly and thinks that people should treat him with more respect. There is miss guided arrogance, blaming the fact of what he has not done as not having the chance. He could be saying this because he wishes to be important and wants to be well known
He is a violent and aggressive person “I squash a fly against the window” Even his actions to a fly are aggressive, when the fly has not done any harm to him. The fact that he has killed an innocent being helps to express his feelings of hate.
He is very casual and off hand about killing “It is an ordinary day” he sees killing as an everyday occurrence and that killing is normal. As he does not show any emotion for killing you are able to see that he is very selfish and is not concerned for anyone but himself. He believes that he is the most important and that the way that he leads his life has to be better than everyone else’s.
There are two sides of the same person “I get out our bread knife”
He has not talked about anyone else previously in the poem. It firstly gives us the impression that he lives with someone but this can be contradicted by “I have had enough of being ignored” indicates that he is alone. He could be explaining that there are two sides to him and that he yearns to be different. One side of his split personality is deeply aggressive and that killing is a fantasy.
The Man he killed is different from the preceding poems as this man regrets the killing. He is looking back on his time at war “But ranged as infantry and staring face to face” This also indicates that he is quite old as he has had a while to think about what happened and to talk about himself when he was younger.
He is modest and friendly “You’d treat if met where any bar is, or help to half-a-crown” He shows that if he met the man he killed in a bar then he would happily lend the man a crown or buy him a drink. This highlights that war makes you do things you would not usually do as it is your duty to serve your country whether you believe killing to be right or not. This conveys that he is not an aggressive person as he refers to the man he killed as a fellow indicating that they could have been friends only he was perceived as a foe on the battle field.
His attitude is one of that he regrets his killing and is trying to justify it “ Just so: my foe of course he was; that’s clear enough” He is trying to convince himself that the killing was not entirely his fault and it was the brutality of the war that led him to do what he did. In this phrase you get a sense of hesitation as thoughts are running through his mind of the events and what lead up to him killing that man.
He is a country man “Because he was my foe” This illuminates that he is loyal to his country and that he killed this man because it was the right thing to do for his country.
“You’d treat if met where any bar is” This shows that he is a sociable person who likes to spend time amongst other people. It also displays that he is not a loner, he carries out a normal way of life and does not exclude himself from the outside world, and he likes to experience life.
My last Duchess is told by the Duke of Ferrara who is a very arrogant person “My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name with anybody’s gift” He regards himself far above others and believes that what he can give to her is far more than what anyone else can. She should be thankful to him for all he has done for her. He hints throughout the poem that is important, and has status and power.
“I gave commands then; then all smiles stopped together.” This gives the impression to the reader that he is callous. He talks about her in a strict manor to indicate that she deserved being killed and that he does not feel guilty for her death, he believes it was her fault as she led him to do this.
He is jealous of her ability to feel joy in natural, simple things “ too soon made glad, too easily impressed; she liked whate’er she looked on and her looks went everywhere” This shows that she has a loving for everything around her and is contempt with life. The Duke may be jealous because he cannot feel like this and is impressed and pleased with power and status only.
Hitcher achieves the impression of ordinary speech by using modern and colloquial language “I thumbed a lift”. Hitcher also uses enjambment to show that the sentence or phrase is continuous.
In Education for leisure short sentences such as “Anything” to convey tension and aggression in the speaker’s voice. He also uses enjambment and the last line addresses “you” which makes the poem personally threatening.
The man he killed uses both dialect and hesitation to achieve the impression of ordinary speech. He hesitates “I shot him dead because – Because he was my foe” It gives the reader the impression that he is thinking about what he is going to say next, as we sometimes do when we are talking.
My last Duchess uses Enjambment in the middle of lines to make the poem sound more natural. It also uses brackets “(since none puts by the curtain I have drawn for you)” to achieve the impression of ordinary speech. My last duchess uses questions to form a relationship with the reader and get them involved in the story that they are telling, and to create the atmosphere in which they are trying achieve. Throughout the poem you are able to see that the Duke is searching for the right word to use to tell his tale to the slave. This leads the reader to realise that he is thinking and his thoughts are being explained.
In Hitcher there are 5 stanzas to tell the story of the murder and it is written in the past tense. Education is written in the present tense. It is an account of a day and the killings described. It both begins and ends with the streets, this could mirror how he is feeling and show the dramatic feeling and difference from what he was feeling at the start and at the end “Grey” and “Glitter”. The man he killed looks back; it begins and ends with the ‘killer’ having a drink with the dead man. There are three middle stanzas his thoughts on when and why he killed the man. My last duchess is one long stanza because it is a speech to the Count’s representative. It begins and ends with references to works of art – He treated her like a beautiful object he had acquired. My last Duchess also had rhyming couplets.
Hitcher had modern references e.g. Kroolok, which creates an almost relaxed atmosphere as the language is often quite colloquial. There is a quote from a Bob Dylan song Work verses Freedom. Hitcher also has casual references to violence. Education for Leisure is similar to Hitcher but there are allusions to Shakespeare “We did that at school, Shakespeare.” There is also the mention of a thumb “I squash a fly against the window with my thumb” and in Shakespeare to bit your thumb wants to start a fight. There is also an allusion to the bible “I see that it is good” from Genesis describing God making the world, but he however is destroying it. The Man he killed uses Dorset dialect words and indicates that he is a simple country man by using terms such as “fellow” but there are no violent or menacing words in this poem as he regrets the killing of him foe in war. In My last duchess there is an educated language which contains art and diplomacy, as a Duke is speaking. There is a veiled threat as he is giving commands. It is still quite sinister and threatening but not openly violent like Hitcher and Education for Leisure. There are no similies or metaphors in my last duchess because they are used to liken one thing to another and the Duke considers himself like no other, and above the rest because of his power, importance and status.
In Hitcher the mood is quite boastful, at the beginning you start to feel sorry for the character as his life stressful and he is feeling deeply under pressure. As the poem progresses you feel less sympathetic because the aggression that he has for his life is taken out on someone else. Hitcher is quite boastful, when he says “- and didn’t even swerve. Here he shows that he thinks highly of his driving ability which is a change of tone from the beginning. His tone, towards the end, is callous and uncaring “you can walk from there” He has contempt for the victim; it shows that he does not care and shows no worry for the victim for whether he lives or dies after the attack.
The tone of voice in Education for Leisure is very arrogant “I breathe out talent” He thinks incredibly highly of himself and he believes that people around him do not give him the respect that he deserves. “I could be anything at all with half the chance” This shows that he has not achieved very much I life but he considers that to be because others have not given him the chance. He thinks that his failure is the fault of others and that he cannot be blamed.
The man he killed has a very different tone of voice as it is quite perplexed. Throughout the poem he has a repentant tone “Just so: my foe of course he was” This shows that he is sorry for what he did but it was the state of war that is to blame. He claims war is brutal and that he was sent to fight for his country, it was not anything personal. He is convincing himself that war makes you do things that you would not usually do. His tone is friendly and not aggressive compared to the others and he refers to the man he killed as a friend.
My last Duchess is arrogant as are Hitcher and Education for leisure “I gave commands then; then all smiles stopped together” He seems proud of what he has achieved and does not hesitate bring it into conversation. He shows that he has power; this is conveyed in the mentioning of her death, he has a desire to become even more powerful.
I found Education for Leisure the most effective in creating the atmosphere of menace. Carol Ann Duffy describes the characters feelings very well, she is able to express his desire to kill to the reader in a convincing way. The poem is very much like a story and is told as an account of someone’s life. The poet describes the character as being unsociable and feeling very alone. He is frustrated with his life feels that he (himself) deserves better than this. She builds up menace by quoting scenes which have a slight relevance to what is going to happen later on in the poem, “ I squash a fly against the window with my thumb”, “I pour the goldfish down the bog” which builds up tension. Ordinary, everyday language is used which make the audience feel uneasy because they are able to relate it to their own use of language, “down the bog” he uses speech that is relaxed and therefore the reader is able to picture it. He has a very arrogant tone throughout the poem, he does not care about what or who he kills and he feels that he gains power through his actions. But his arrogance is often misguided, blaming what he has not done on the fact that he has not had the chance. His basic instinct is killing; it is indiscriminate and could affect anybody’s life. It could be you are I that could be in the wrong place at the wrong time. The circumstances of despair can be recognised by the reader, as times that they have felt potentially low in their life. This particular character is disturbed because of his desire to kill “Today I am going to kill something. Anything.” and does not care what happens to him or anybody else. The sense of aggression is created by short sentences. They are very short, blunt and matter of fact, make the poem disturbing and make him seem uncaring. The sentences are jerky, unpredictable and tense. He is not appreciated by anyone “He cuts me off” and is rejected once again. He begins with the killing of something small and this leads you onto thinking that he is going to kill something larger, a human. He uses ‘your’ to indicate that he may be talking to someone’s he knows or someone on the street. The way he uses the word you causes great suspense as the reader now relates the poem to them. The poem also hints a split personality one side is deeply aggressive, that killing is a fantasy and desire, and that he may want to accomplish it in reality.
Overall the poems are very much the same. The Man he killed is similar to the other poem as he has killed but the difference is that he is regretting what he has done and does not have feeling of aggression or a passion to kill. The Man he killed has only one side and not a split personality. He is recollecting and trying to understand what has happened. It is a slow, simple and thoughtful poem (caused by punctuation) as the man is hesitant.
Hitcher has town sides to one person, and the contempt with the other half, the longing to become someone that you are not. He is trying to escape from the person that he is to become another. He does not feel that identity matters, he begins to appear normal and then turns in to a violent and aggressive character. This poem is similar to education for leisure as they are both ordinary people trapped by the pressures of life and capable of dreadful things.
My last Duchess is another poem where the character does not feel guilty about what he has done. He has tried to justify his killing, he is convinced but the reader does not share his feelings and think it was unreasonable. He is Jealous of someone else’s outlook on life. He is proud and arrogant. He is possessive and protective he now feels that he owns his Duchess as she is in his painting.
Education for leisure is similar to Hitcher as both characters have a desire to kill. They are both arrogant and aggressive and care not for others. Their off hand and casual response to murder creates suspense as the reader can relate which make s the poem personally threatening. It is a chilling poem which causes the reader unease.
All the poems have a relevance to our lives which make them personally threatening in different ways. Suspense is gradually built up by punctuation and use of words. The way all of the poems are written is extremely effective and the reader experiences various emotions and changes their view of the character through different points in each poem.
