In verse four Kate got married to lord, you know this because it says, ‘he bound you with his ring,’ and in this verse it also suggests that the neighbours no longer like the narrator but like Kate, you think this because it says, ‘the neighbours call you good and pure they call me the outcast thing,’ it also says that she ‘sits and howls in dust,’ saying that she howls gives very strong animal imagery, she also describes that Kate is stronger as it says, ‘you had the stronger wing.’ In verse five the narrator is saying if I were you I would not have fell in love with the lord, because this would be unfair, and she is saying that you should not have taken his hand in marriage because she knew that I was in love with him. In verse six the narrator is saying that she has something better than Kate and that is a child, it says, ‘yet I’ve a gift you have not got, and seem not like to get’ this suggests that Kate is unable to have children, she also says my pride this means she loves him very much.
There are a few words that are unusual in the poem, an example is flaxen this means blonde or pale coloured. Another is rye this is crop or grain. Another word that I found unusual in the poem was fret, this means worry unnecessarily. Another is coronet this means a small crown. These words keep me interested in the poem.
The first verse in Human Interest is telling the reader that the narrator has been put in prison, you know this as it says, ‘fifteen years minimum banged up inside,’ and it only took him thirty seconds to do this crime, the writer writes that so you know that he got fifteen years in jail all for thirty seconds. On the third line in the first verse you can start to work out that he has killed a lady as it says, ‘she turned away. I stabbed.’ The punctuation in this line is very interesting, there are a lot of full stops, and this is so you read the line slowly, this would also give a punchy feel to the verse. In The second verse in human interest, you can tell that the narrator is angry because the woman lied. It says ‘I slogged my guts out for her,’ that suggests that he has done a lot for the woman but she has threw it all back into his face. On the second line in verse two it starts to suggest that this woman is having an affair, you know this because it says, ‘she used to meet some prick after work’ in that quote the writer uses the word prick, this is a very strong word he uses it to show that the narrator is very angry and upset. At the end of the verse the narrator also says ‘she stank of deceit,’ this does not mean that she literally smelt but it means that the narrator knows that his wife or girlfriend was cheating on him. In the last verse of this poem, the narrator is saying that he so wishes he had done what he has done. It says ‘I near choke with grief’ the writer uses the word choke to provide powerful imagery. Grief means sorrow caused by the loss of a loved one (especially by death). At the end of the poem it is saying that he would not normally harm a fly.
The poems are the same in some ways but very different in others. Both poems are stories of love and both poems deal with broken relationships but they are quite different in how they do it. cousin Kate is about a girl who is rejected by the lord of the manor in preference for her cousin. Human Interest involves a man who stabs his partner because he discovered her with another man. In cousin Kate I think that both Kate and the narrator are victims because of how the lord has treated them and the lord is culprit for treating them in this way. Where as in human interest there is only one victim that is the narrator’s lover, and the culprit is the man who murdered his wife. But human interest is different, as the language in the poem is a lot more modern and the events that happen in the poem such as the narrator murdering his lover would never of happened at the time when cousin Kate was written as I mentioned at the start.
My favourite poem would have to be human interest I find it interesting to read and it is a very strong poem with some good imagery. Cousin Kate is also good but I find it to be a bit less interesting
David squires 10hraz
