"Porphyiria's Lover" starts with a negative mood. It starts by describing stormy weather, but it uses personification as we can see by his word choice that he is putting his feelings in the way the weather is reacting like him and the weather has the same feelings. Pathetic fallacy is when objects are used to describe their feelings like a human and here Robert Browning describes the weather as "vexed" and full of "spite" despite us knowing this is how he is actually feeling, therefore the weather is describing the plot and the emotions. we can see that deep down this is what he is feeling but we do not know why, this is a way the language is used to add shock and interest as it makes the reader shocked to why he is using such strong words and what is making him feel so upset. When his lover returns he describes "she put my arm around her waist" and" made her smooth white shoulders bare." this shows how sexually suggestive the lover is and as this was in the pre 1900s it was seen as not having any modesty, it would shock the reader as how can someone do such a thing as these things laid uncovered and here it is being revealed very openly. the way he describes the woman in such a sexual way describing her shoulders as "smooth" shows how he craves for her touch and shows love and sexual feelings, this creates realism as some people may have felt this before and feel empathy with the writer. However suddenly after all that speech about love and the way their bodies touched and craved for each other, he suddenly gets violent and angry. We can see this by the language he uses. At the start he described her hair as "yellow hair" but now his language was a contrast and described the hair as “one long yellow string". This shows us how he does not see her as beautiful anymore and the sexual feelings are not there anymore. He now sees her hair like a tool. The connotations could be that the hate now makes the hair seem like a weapon for killing. When he commits the murder he replies "no pain felt she" here we can tell the murderer is trying to take away the negativity and has a guilty conscious as he replies again “I am quite sure she felt no pain." By repeating himself he is trying to reassure himself it was right and that se had not felt anything as he wants to make sure as there might be some kind of love still deep within that he feels for her.
"Education for leisure” however uses a very different type of language compared to the other monologue. The opening sentence is very dramatic and adds shock to the reader as it states " today I am going to kill something." it shows us the aggression and straight away that the person in this monologue is disturbed or furious with something. The sentence is short which attracts attention and is very successful in telling us what the dramatic monologue is about. In the last stanza the writer describes "there's nothing left to kill" this shocks the audience outrageously of how it is easy for this person to talk about killing like they have no heart. We start to wonder how he/she means there's nothing left to kill, this disturbs us as does that mean he/she has killed everything else around them. It is here that we see this person is capable of anything and insanity comes to mind. The way the write creates realism is how it describes things like we do in everyday life. One thing it talks about is school and we all have had experience of school and what happens there. The word "Shakespeare" reminds us of times when people had to study it and still do. Therefore using everyday scenes creates realism as it makes us believe this person is actually going through this. On the contrary we wonder and think imagine that person is the guy/girl sitting next to us! These are some of the ways the language creates shock and realism in our minds.
The structure can help create a better sense of realism or shock. In "Porphria's Lover" some of the ending at the end of the lines contain rhyming like "lake" and "brake" this can help that sentence or word stick in our mind and depending on what the word or sentence is it could add shock if it's something disturbing, for example he says “I listened with heart fit to break", this shows anxiety and fragileness, but also it creates realism as when you wait for something so bad you listen to every sound and your heart beats like it's going to jump out. The use of enjambment in the structure of the poem adds affect as it suggests all these events to be happening so quickly but also to emphasize the fact that no one has any power of what is happening. The events all happened so suddenly that there was no time for pause. This adds shock as we think how could someone do something like this so quickly and without thinking? Sometimes can make stupid mistakes or huge mistakes which we could understand as this is what happened here. The real shock is that this was murder.
On the contrary “Education for Leisure” has a very simplistic structure this relates to the language used as the poet is trying to tell us the character is uneducated and this can be shown in the structure. Moreover the structure is also very easy to access and this adds to how realistic the poem is through the way the structure is so common and something we have seen before. In "education for leisure" the monologue contains five stanzas, the writer has made them very easy and has a regular pattern to show the mentality and the understanding of the character, that they are not well educated and have on understanding, this is created to add to how realistic the monologue is as it warns us about the events to show us that you would expect someone who is so poorly educated and probably mentally ill would do something like this. We can empathize with what the character is saying, which is "today's an ordinary day." This disturbs us as we think does this person do this kind of horrific things everyday? The writer conveys its message through its word rather than through its structure. However its sentence structure is very interesting as every shocking thing that happens is usually in a short and snappy sentence. "There is nothing left to kill" and "today I am going to kill something." the shortness helps us to remember it easier and makes it more effective and adds shock to how quickly this person reacts and thinks when he does something dangerous.
As a text of it's time "Porphyria's Lover" did not represent its own time. This is because when the writer says "be sure" this phrase is an archaic phrase, meaning that it was even old fashioned for its time which was the Victorian times. He did this to protect himself as for those times if people find out this tragic story was true he could be persecuted for it, and as dramatic monologues were in first person this could have been true. For Robert Browning to use this technique it adds to the effectiveness by questioning the audiences mind that maybe this was a wake up call of what was happening in the dark side of the Victorian times, that it was not all about church and God but that inside the shadow people were creeping around with secrets hiding inside.
"Education for Leisure" however is a text of it's time. This is because it uses a simple range of vocabulary but also the simplicity helps you to gain straight away what is going on. It relates back to the title as it's called "education for leisure" and for the person to use such simple vocabulary it shows they are not that educated which mean yes, they have used their education for fun and the way the poem is written proves it.
In conclusion I believe that "education for Leisure" is the most shocking to its intended audience. This is because I believe this monologue is more effective in the way it uses its words to gain the shock and attention of the audience. the writer starts the day by describing "I kill a fly" something you could do everyday which is very normal and as time passes and we get to the end the things which he seems to be hurting and destroying are getting bigger. In the end he says “I touch your arm". The ways the tension is built in this monologue is very effective as by the end it leaves you in a cliff hanger as whom that person is and the fact that it actually could be you as the reader so it involves the audience too, This really attracted my attention. "Porphyria's Lover" was not even a text of it's time therefore it could not relate to its audience very well. However "Education for leisure uses simple word choices but gets to the point very quickly and effectively. It uses sentence structure to make it more effective. Using short sentences and long sentences adds effect as it grabs the audiences’ attention and gets the pulse increasing and the heart beating faster. the way the events happened it became more threatening like a real life story, but also there are new everywhere day by day of what people go through like this person did so it makes us understand more how this person feels and creates even more realism, but also the most effective threatening voice as this kind of murder is not rare but happens. As a result I could relate to this monologue better and found it more effective. Some of the techniques I described were used to add shock and realism to these monologues.
By: Elnaz Eghtedar
