In Havisham, a poem by Carol Ann Duffy the woman in the poem has a strong dislike for a man that was to be her husband. He walked out on her on her wedding day and she never got over it. This poem displays obvious jealousy because the woman in the poem is jealous of the man that was to be her husband because he got on with his life after the wedding day and he got over her whereas she did not and she held a grudge on him for that, but she is not only angry at him she is angry at all men and she thinks that all men are the same.
The other poem that portrays jealousy for another person is Kid by Simon Armitage. This poem is also about Robin feeling that he does not get enough attention and he is always the second man. He is saying that whenever anyone refers to himself and Batman, they always say Batman and Robin and not Robin and Batman. This is different from the other three poems because it is about someone who feels that they do not get enough glory for the work that they do and that they are always the second person. Like all of the other poems the person telling the poem comes off in a worse light than the person that they are trying to make look bad. This is because they are complaining so much and they are being spiteful towards the other person.
In all the poems the effect that the dislike has had on the individual was slightly different. In the poem “Havisham” the dislike or hatred has had an enormous impact. I do not really think that it was the man that was going to be her husbands fault entirely that she turned out the way that she did because she did not have to stay in her wedding dress. She also let herself get obsessive which she did not have to do and she could of got on with her life and maybe forget about her wedding day, rather than letting it take over her life completely. In “Kid” the dislike did not really have that much of an impact on Robin’s life and he was saying that he was getting on with his life. This is completely the opposite from “Havisham”. The individual from the “The Laboratory” was quite obsessive over her hatred and she became so obsessive that she found that the only way to resolve her problem was to kill the person that she hated. Although she was quite calm about what she was going to do. In the poem “My Last Duchess” the mans jealousy took over him and he also killed. After he had done so he got on with his life quite quickly and planned to re-marry. Although he always thought about his last duchess and told other people about her.
In all poems you can hear the person reciting the poem. This illusion of speech is caused in many different ways. A way that is successful and the poet’s use often is punctuation or the lack of punctuation. In “Kid” enjambment is used,
“When you gave the order to grow up” this makes the poem sound like direct speech. In the poem “The Laboratory” there is often punctuation at the end of the line.
“Brand, burn up, bite into its grace-“. This use of punctuation is to make you pause and when you are pausing you are concentrating on the line or words that were before. In “Kid” in line five there is a very good use of punctuation
“Ditched me, rather, in the gutter… well, I turned the corner.” The use of commas and ellipsis here gives the reader chance to breath and during the pause they will be thinking about what was said before hand. Both Simon Armitage and Carol Ann Duffy use this technique and in this way the poems are quite similar.
Another good technique that is used is putting interesting adjectives in front of a word. This is used to get the readers attention onto the word that is being stressed. Sounds that are used to make the poem have meaning to it are long vowel sounds and quick sounds. For example, “whole days”. This quote came from the poem Havisham. The long vowel sounds are particularly meaningful in this poem because it makes the reader sound depressed and fed up when they are reading the poem and it is also as if the reader is droning on. This is a good effect for this poem because the poem is not meant to be jaunty. Another poem that also contains long vowel sounds is “My Last Duchess”.
“Never to stoop. Oh sir, she smiled, no doubt”, this also gives out a depressing sound.
These techniques also show how the dislike is conveyed. The uses of short sentences are used to also make you focus on the poem and to make the dislike really come across in just one sentence. For example in the poem Havisham, at the beginning of the second stanza the word “Spinster” is used on its own as a sentence. This word is very effective, especially as it is at the beginning of the stanza. When the poem is read you can almost hear the woman in the poem spitting out the word because she is so angry. Another example of this would be in “Kid”.
“Batman, big shot”. This is not meant to be said in a nice way but it is being said very bitterly. It gives you a bitter impression because of the strong echoing syllables.
“Kid” and “My Last Duchess” are similar in the way that they are written and the shape of the poems are similar because they are written without stanzas. Just like “The Laboratory” and “Havisham” are similar because they are written in stanzas. I think that is ironic in the way that “Havisham” is written because it is written like a sonnet and sonnets are love poems. The poet here could be writing it about dislike and hatred to show some kind of irony and sarcasm. The whole way through the poem sarcasm has been shown and there has also been the use of an oxymoron.
“ Beloved sweetheart bastard”. When you read this you can imagine the woman saying this gently to start off with and then suddenly cuts off the sentence sharply with the word bastard. Oxymorons are also used in other poems where a loving word is followed by a word to do with hatred. Something else that I think is ironic is that in the poem “The Laboratory” the poem is written in quite a jaunty rhythm but the poem itself is not jaunty but is actually the complete opposite.
Imagery was used in all four poems. In the poem “My Last Duchess” a few similes were used “As if she were alive”. This is a simile because she was not alive but it was like she was. In “The Laboratory” metaphors are used. For example “those masculine eyes”. In “Havisham” a metaphor is also used “I’ve dark green pebbles for eyes”. In “Kid” a simile is used in the sixth line, “he was like a father to me”.
Something else that is the same in all four poems is that they are written in the first person.
