The poems Stealing, Hitcher, My Last Duchess and The Laboratory all share the theme of disturbing behaviour. In S and H, this behaviour is a result of boredom.

contrast with this, TL’s persona is excited by the prospect of death and wants to be much more involved in the process than in MLD.All four poems use language to convey the persona’s thoughts and disturbing mindsets clearly. In S, the persona is portrayed as lonely; he steals the snowman for a ‘mate’ with ‘a mind as cold as…my own’; he just wants someone to relate to. Is isolation and loneliness is further emphasised by how he says he and the snowman ‘hugged’. He’s desperate for affection; so much so, he turns to a snow sculpture. His crimes could be seen as a call for help as he deliberately ‘leaves a mess’ so the homeowners will know he’s been there and invaded their privacy. However, this could be interpreted as him wanting to cause others pain and grief. This is similar to H. Both personas in H and S are perhaps jealous of the people they harm. In H, he is jealous of the hitcher’s freedom – ‘he was following the sun to west from east’ – which contrasts against his own stressful situation with his ‘screaming’ answer phone. The personification of the answer phone emphasises his anger and aggression. Whereas in S, he could be jealous of the children, a sign of joy and innocence, and is ‘thrilled’ that they will ‘cry in the morning’. Jealousy is an emotion also shown in TL and MLD. In TL, the persona is jealous of her ex-lover’s new partner and how they ‘laugh’ together. She is jealous to such an extent, that she wants to poison her. Whereas in MLD, he is jealous of how the duchess ‘thanked men’ so he ‘gave commands’ and had her killed. The coldness of this phrase suggests that he didn’t love her, and sees a wife as a materialistic belonging. This is shown by him saying that the painting was ‘as if she were alive’ and uses the curtain to control her. He insinuates her death by saying ‘then all smiles stopped together’. This dark humour and boastfulness is also shown in H. However, he expresses this by the colloquial language and boasts how he ‘didn’t even swerve’ when killing the hippy. His coldness is further shown by how he simply states ‘you can walk from there’, conveying his sick, twisted sense of humour.Form is also used in the poems to show disturbing behaviour. In S, the form is four equal stanzas. This emphasises the speaker’s calculated thoughts. This method is also used in H, with its five equal stanzas. However, the lengths of the lines and his sentence structure differ which shows the different emotions he feels (stress, anger, humorous) and how his thoughts are impulsive. Both TL and MLD use rhyme in their poems; however, for different reasons. In MLD, the clear rhymes show his controlling behaviour. Whereas, the rhymes in TL provide an almost song-like rhythm which emphasises her excitement over the poison.It is tone which provides a true disturbing feel to the poems. In TL, her excitement towards death is disturbing. Whereas in MLD; S and H, the coldness towards their crimes and their lack of empathy shows how unaffected they are by them.In conclusion, I think that Armitage was the most successful in showing the persona’s disturbing behaviour. The description of the violence and the casual, conversational tone combined to create and chilling and frightening poem.