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"Hitcher"By Simon Armitage, "Education For Leisure" By Carol Anne Duffy,"My Last Duchess" and "The Lab" by Robert Browning are allpoems that deal with violence or the prospect of violence.

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Introduction

"Hitcher" By Simon Armitage, "Education For Leisure" By Carol Anne Duffy, "My Last Duchess" and "The Lab" by Robert Browning are all poems that deal with violence or the prospect of violence. "Hitcher" is a poem about a man who is angry at being threatened with the sack, he picks up a hitch-hiker and kills him and then leaves him on the road side. The poetic voice seems to be psychotic and also talks about the attack in a casual manner. "Ed for Leisure" also deals with a bitter person who feels he has been let down by society. As he becomes increasingly demotivated, he gets more and more violent ending with leaving the house with a bread knife. ...read more.

Middle

Simple and direct language is used by Armitage to demonstrate the characters casual attitude to violence. It is also used in "Ed for Leisure" to help create the short staccato lines such as "Today I am going to kill something. Anything." Both poems by Robert Browning are dramatic monologues, "The Lab" is a mixture of the main characters thoughts and her words to the apothecary. She seems very similar to the main characters in both "Ed for Leisure" and "Hitcher" as an insane twisted side of her character is exposed... The lady in "The Laboratory" is plotting to murder the mistress of her lover and seems very excited about the prospect of death. ...read more.

Conclusion

The poetic voice talks about how his wife was too flirtatious and how it was not only him that brought smiles to her face. After a while, he grew tired of not being appreciated, gave orders and her smile stopped all together. The main characters in "Ed for Leisure" and "My Last Duchess" are both very egocentric using lots of personal pronouns. For example the second and last word of Browning's poem, "My Last Duchess" talks about himself. All of the poems deal with violence but they all deal with diff ways egocentric, twisted people vent anger through violence. I personally feel that dramatic monologues convey this emotion very well, I esp like "hitcher" and "Ed for Leisure" as the characters drawn are realistic. However, this may be because I find them easier to read due to the more modern language. ...read more.

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