Education For Leisure

This sample essay on Education For Leisure offers an extensive list of facts and arguments related to it. The essay’s introduction, body paragraphs, and the conclusion are provided below.

Browning’s poems ‘My Last Duchess’ and ‘The Laboratory’ both deal with jealous killers. I will examine the characters in both of these poems and note the similarities and differences between them. Duffy’s ‘Education for Leisure’ and Armitage’s ‘Hitcher’ both have people who are driven to kill because of boredom.

I will also look closely at both of these poems and compare them. This makes and assumption that Fra Pandolf compliments “called that spot of joy”. He is irritated about the fact the she is pleases with everything that “She had a heart – how shall I say? too soon made glad, too easily impressed. ”

He disapproves of how she ranked everything equally, “Sir ’twas all one! My favour at her breast, the dropping of daylight in the west, the bough of cherries some officious fool broke in the orchard for her, the white mule she rode with around the terrace.

” You could not distinguish if she was pleased with one thing more than another. He expects her to be more grateful with his gift rather than nature’s gifts. He has a strong dislike for the men who flirted with her, he refers to one of them as an ‘officious fool’

He is particularly annoyed that she was equally impressed with his status as with any other gift. “Somehow – I know not how – as if she ranked my gift of a nine-hundred-year-old name with anybody’s gift.

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” He expects her to appreciate his nine-hundred-year-old name, as to him it is a more valuable gift compared to any other. This also emphasises his pride by the mentioning of his nine-hundred-year-old family name. The poem does not directly say he killed her although it is implied the he ordered her to be killed when he says, Then all smiles stopped together. ” This creates a sense of realism and informs the reader that thee is another person present at the scene. In this poem the killer is planning on killing Pauline, her lover’s mistress. She knows that they expect her to cry and rush to church to pray for their sins; instead she is in the laboratory planning her revenge. She says how she would much rather watch the poison being produces rather that go to dance. She refers to the gum as ‘gold’ indicating that it is like a treasure to her.

The Laboratory Poem

This portrays her strong desire to kill. She exclaims how wonderful it would be ‘to carry pure death’ around with her, meaning that she is excited with the prospects of having the power to end someone’s life. She is thrilled with the idea of Pauline’s limbs falling off. She had hoped that here stare would make Pauline fall and die, Both poems are similar as there is an element of jealousy within the killers. The duke of Ferrara is jealous that his wife is more attentive to other men, and the woman in ‘The Laboratory’ is jealous of her lover’s mistress.

Both of the characters in the poems are driven to kill because of their jealousy, it is because of their partners they are led to commit a murder. The duke is angry that his wife does not value his nine-hundred-year-old family name, and then jealous woman is enraged that her husband is with another woman. However, in ‘My Last Duchess’ the predation of murder is not apparent. We cannot recognize if the duke was responsible for her death, “This grew; I gave commands; then all smiles stopped together. ”

This doesn’t directly tell the reader that he killed her although it is an implication that he ordered her to be killed. The woman in ‘The Laboratory’ is preparing Pauline’s death. She is contemplating the methods and how she is to achieve this. The duke is extremely critical and complaints about his duchess in most of the poem whereas in ‘The Laboratory’ it is mostly about the jealous woman arranging the murder. In Duffy’s ‘Education for Leisure’ the murderer was driven to kill out of boredom. The killer is obviously egocentric as he/she says, “I am going to play God”.

God has the ability to give a take a life. This indicates his intention of murder. He wants to play god and take someone’s life. “I breathe out talent”. His ego is emphasised by the repletion of the pronoun “I”. He/she has no motive; he/she wants to kill something, anything. “Today I am going to kill something. Anything. ” Who or what he/she is going to kill is not important to him/her. The significance to him/her of the murder is that he/she has the ability to change the world. This also links back to the fact that he/she wants to take God’s role.

After killing the fly and the god fish he is still bored. He/she did mention that they merely wanted to kill ‘something’. “There is nothing left to kill. I dial the radio and tell the man he is talking to a superstar” This confirms that he kills out of boredom. There is nothing left for him/her to destroy so he/she calls the radio to keep occupied. He/she does not need to kill when he/she is occupied, this is reinforced when he gets cut off from the radio. “He cuts me off. I our bread-knife and go out. ”

The killer does not pause to think, he/she immediately reaches for the knife to keep occupied. Perhaps if he/she was not cut off from the radio he/she might not have taken the knife with the intention of killing someone. However the killer had such a short attention span so he/she would have inevitably gone out to kill just as soon as he/she got bored or restless. Both of these poems are similar as they both are voices from the first person. The killers in both of the poems appear to kill out of boredom. They just select their victims and once they have committed the murder they feel no remorse.

Neither of them have any particular hate for the victims, to them it does not matter who they kill. They have their own ways of killing. The man in ‘Hitcher’ beats the victim, “Once with the head- then six times with the krooklok”. The killer gives the victims an instant death. All four killers have the power to kill, this is what motivates them to do the murder. The first two killers in ‘My Last Duchess’ and ‘The Laboratory’ kill because of their jealousy, while the murderers in ‘Education for Leisure’ and ‘hither’ commit murder out of boredom.