This may illustrates to us either that the persona is responding the question that some one has asked in a conversation or the persona wanted to tell us what is the unusual thing she/he has stole. This makes us feel interesting to the poem, because the languages Duffy has used, to make we as a reader to interpret whatever way we like. The structure in “Stealing” is irregular, because the previous stanza does not link towards the next stanza. This perhaps displays that Duffy is trying to shows the disturbed mind of the persona.
“Mostly I’m so bored I could eat myself.” (Line 21)
From this sentence we can find out that the persona is an abnormal person, because a normal person would not eat him/herself even though if they were bored. The interesting bit of the structure is that it is unique. Since that some of the poems always have the same structure which seem to be normal and dull, therefore if the poem structured in a different way will make the reader feel it’s an extraordinary poem.
In contrast, in “Hitcher”, “My Last Duchess” and “The Laboratory” although, the languages that the poets have used are not violent, but what the character does in the poem makes the poem seem to be violent. For example: - In “Hitcher”, the murder killed a person in the poem,
“once with the head, then six times with the krooklok in the face”. (Line 13)
From this line it proves that Armitage has hardly used any violent languages in the violent act scene. This makes the poem seems to be interesting because the poem has still contains the theme of violent, without using aggressive languages.
In “My Last Duchess”, Browning also did not used violent languages but he has used rhyming couplets instead.
“Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands;
Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands” (Line 45)
This quote gives an idea to the reader that the persona might has killed his wife, but in the line it did not actually tells us did he killed her or how did she got killed, also this line contains rhyming couplets which aids to make the line more effective. This is interesting and effective because this is the only poem out of the three poems contains rhyming couplets, which makes the reader feels that this is an astonishing poem, also the rhyming couplets at the end of each line makes the reader wants to carry on with the poem.
In “The Laboratory”, Browning used repetition in his poem,
“And her breast and her arms and her hands,
should drop dead!” (Line 24)
This may demonstrates that Browning wanted to use repetition to shows the hate and jealousy of the persona. Moreover this is the only poem out of the three poems uses repetition, therefore it can be more noticeable that how envy and hatred of the character. This makes the poem interesting, because this really makes the reader to think how the persona felt in the poem, also there are some similarities between “The Laboratory” and “My Last Duchess” because they are both about how the persona is jealous of some one. For example: - In “My Last Duchess” the jealousy quote is shown by
“The dropping of the daylight in the West,
The bough of cherries some officious fool” (Line 27)
This tells us that the persona is jealous of his wife’s happiness; therefore he might perhaps decide to kill his wife. Likewise, in “The Laboratory” the jealousy quote is shown by
“Where they are, what they do: they believe” (Line 6)
This informs us that possibly as the persona’s boyfriend is cheated on her and went with another girl, maybe that’s the reason why the persona wanted to kill her.
In conclusion, I think all of the poems are interesting because the ways the poets use the languages and structured their poem are related to the character of the persona. Generally, I think “Stealing” is the most interesting, because the used of languages and the way the poet structured the poem, makes the reader feel sympathy for him, since the persona had no friends and feel lonely.
