Compare the following poems: 'The Laboratory' and 'My Last Duchess' by Robert Browning and 'Hitcher' by Simon Armitage.

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Imogen Offer 10T

October 10th 2003

Compare the following poems: ‘The Laboratory’ and ‘My Last Duchess’ by Robert Browning and ‘Hitcher’ by Simon Armitage.

        In this essay I am going to compare three poems, ‘The Laboratory’ and ‘My Last Duchess’ by Robert Browning and ‘Hitcher’ by Simon Armitage. ‘The Laboratory’ is a dramatic monologue about a woman who has discovered her husband is having an affair with two other women. She is plotting to poison both of the mistresses who she blames for attracting and trapping her husband. The poem is set in an apothecary and the woman is watching the potion that will kill being made. ‘My Last Duchess’ is also a dramatic monologue in which the Duke of Ferrara is telling one of the count’s servants about a portrait of his last wife. He has had her killed because he did not think she behaved in the correct manor as a Duchess or as his wife. All three  ‘Hitcher’ is a ballad that tells the story of a disturbed man who picks up a hitchhiker, then proceeds to brutally and sadistically murder him.

        In ‘The Laboratory’ murder is being planned, in ‘Hitcher’ murder takes place in the poem and in ‘My Last Duchess’ murder has taken place and is being talked about. The three murders referred to are all different. ‘Hitcher’ has a violent murder, “six times with the krooklok in the face”. The murder referred to in ‘My Last Duchess’ does not give away much information, “all smiles stopped together”, the reader is left to infer how the Duchess was killed. In ‘The Laboratory’ the woman has a more restrained method of murder, poison. She tries to disguise it so the women drink it, “The colours too grim”, “Let it brighten her drink”.

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        In the three poems the narrators, who are also the murderers, show they have unbalanced minds and sadistic qualities. In ‘The Laboratory” the woman is enjoying having the power of death, in stanza five, “To carry pure death in an earring”. In stanza six the woman is mentally dismembering Elise, one of her husband’s mistresses, “her breast and her arms and her hands shall drop dead”. This shows her jealousy and resentment, maybe Elise is more attractive than herself. Her unbalanced mind is shown in stanza 10 when she says to make Elise feel pain in her death, “He is ...

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