Handling the Issues of Rage and Murder in Poetry :: Education for Leisure The Hitcher Poems Essays

Handling the Issues of Rage and Murder in PoetryThe two poems I am going to analyse are Education for Leisure byCarol Ann Duffy and The Hitcher. These poems twain have potentiallydangerous talkers.The first line of Education for leisure contains murderous feeling,this grabs the reader and submerses them into the poem.Today I am going to kill something. AnythingThe poet uses direct and powerful words, by using the word somethinginstead of someone the poet makes it unclear what the speaker wantsto kill.In Education for Leisure the speaker thinks that his readiness tokill makes him somehow smarter whence anyone else. This is shown whenthe speaker saysI am a genius...The speaker seems to kill for killing sake. This sadism is shown inline five when the speaker saysI squash a fly against the window with my thumb.We did that at school. Shakespeare.This can be interpreted in two ways, one way is that killing andShakespeare can be associated with boredom. The other way is a linefrom King L ear By William ShakespeareAs locomote to wanton boys are we to the godsThey kill us for their sport. (4.1.57-58)Carol Ann Duffy uses this a another way of symbolising the speakersdelusional view that he is a God.The poet reinforces the point that the speaker is delusional when hesaysThe cat avoids me. The catKnows I am a genius, and has obscure itself.The speaker thinks here that the cat thinks he is a God and has hiddenout of fear, he thinks the whole planet revolves around himself.The speaker also thinks he is famous. I dial the radioand tell the man hes talking to a superstar.He cuts me off.By now the speaker is probably getting very frustrated, he then takesa drastic step.I get our bread-knife and go out.The pavements spark suddenly. I touch your arm.By saying your arm instead of someones arm Carol Ann Duffy bringsthe reader into the poem by making the point that people like thespeaker do exist and this sort of thing could happen.The speaker in The Hitcher is observably feelin g very depressed.Id been tired underthe weather,The speaker is presumably mentally ill, he picks up a hitcher ...inLeedsOne difference The Hitcher has to Education for Leisure is that inThe hitcher we know someone is killed.I let him have iton the top road out of Harrogate - oncewith the head, then six times with the krooklokin the face...even though were not directly told that the hitcher is dead its