ipl-logo

Stealing And Education For Leisure By Carol Ann Duffy

922 Words4 Pages

How does Carol Ann Duffy create a sinister persona in the poems Stealing and Education for Leisure? Stealing and Education for Leisure are poems written by Carol Ann Duffy in the 20th century during the reign of Margaret Thatcher. The two poems depict how powerful society is; and how it can change people’s opinions of each other. Duffy portrays the two narrators as sinister and uneducated. These narrators are expressing their thoughts through a monologue. Duffy’s purpose of writing this poem is to establish how society segregates certain people; consequently, these outcasts endure a lot of suffering in hope that they will be accepted back. Additionally, it alludes to how an outcast can be so paranoid about his state; he would do despicable things as there was no one to judge them. Moreover, Duffy challenges Margaret Thatcher’s bold statement of, “There is no society,” This is challenged throughout both the poems, as Duffy highlights the influence society has on a person and their mind. Furthermore, this was a time with a lot of strife and social instability within the country, therefore Duffy presents the narrators in a sinister manner to demonstrate an outcast’s state of mind. This further supports her argument against Thatcher. Duffy creates sinister personas in these poems by using powerful language and a wide variety of imagery. Firstly, Duffy creates a sinister persona in both of these poems by using vivid imagery to portray the two narrators’ segregation from

Show More
Related

  • Fahrenheit 451 Response Essay

    1828 Words  | 8 Pages

    “The chairs creaked under the three women. Montag finished it out: .. Where ignorant armies clash by night. Mrs. Phelps was crying. The others in the middle of the desert watched her crying grow very loud as her face squeezed itself out of shape.” Mildred and her friends haven’t read any books before, being able to put the right and deep words into a poem speaks louder than them watching the parlor walls.

    Read More

  • Summary Of Seamus Heaney's Field Work

    1714 Words  | 7 Pages

    Seamus Heaney's 1979 volume of poems, Field Work, contains a sequence known as the ‘Glanmore Sonnets’ written while he lived in a nineteenth-century cottage in Glanmore, Co. Wicklow. Lying at the heart of Field Work, this sonnet sequence deals with art, language, nature, and politics, reflecting Heaney's major themes. Fundamentally, it sees a return to the more traditional form of English sonnet as well as using language to transcend the concurrent political situation in the North of Ireland. By doing so, Heaney finds his own poetic voice, one which preaches reconciliation in the North. This study analyses the language and form of two sonnets from this sequence in particular, I and V. Furthermore, it will also discuss how these relate to and

    Read More

  • In The Blue Poem Analysis

    537 Words  | 3 Pages

    Set in a park, the poet introduces a mother whose “clothes are out of date”. It is evident to the reader that she lacks connectedness with her surroundings, as she listens to two of her children onomatopoeically “whine and bicker” and watches another “draw aimless patterns in the dirt”. In contrast, however, McAuley’s father figure is not detached from his surroundings but feels a

    Read More

  • Similarities Between Before You Were Mine And 1964 Top Of The Form Team

    1487 Words  | 6 Pages

    Compare and Contrast the Ways in which Duffy Explores Experiences of Childhood in the language, form and imagery in “Before You Were Mine” and “The Captain of the 1964 Top of the Form Team” in the collection Mean Time In her poems Before You Were Mine and The Captain of the 1964 Top of the Form Team from her Mean Time collection, Duffy explores the concept of nostalgia.. In The Captain of the 1964 Top of the Form Team, the narrator recalls what his youth was like, referring to his childhood as "My country" possibly referencing the L.P. Hartley novel The Go-Between in which the opening sentence reads "The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there. " The phrase "My country" seems to suggest a strong sense of belonging and pride,

    Read More

  • Comparing Gwen Harwood's Suburban Sonnet And Burning Sappho

    1125 Words  | 5 Pages

    Harwood therefore uses the poem as a social commentary on 1950’s Australia. Through figurative language, she shows a dark side to motherhood and how the repetitive and mundane lifestyle can be exhausting. The line “hatred forks between my child and me” shows that the persona is an honest reflection on how ultimately, a mother can resent her children at times. Harwood therefore uses the rhythm of her ‘vengeances’ to form the final couplet in each of her stanza’s which stress that they are related humorously. The quote “inside my smile a monster grins, and sticks her image through with pins.” contains a child like rhyme that contrasts against the dark statements suggesting that the humorous exaggerations could be the persona’s way of dealing with her own confinement.

    Read More

  • Summer Of The 17th Doll Gwen Harwood Analysis

    1015 Words  | 5 Pages

    The piece revolves around the subject of motherhood, portraying a women who feels smothered and consumed by her children. Poetic devices were used by Harwood to emphasise the affect that change had on the woman and her life progression, whilst illustrating the negative response which became evident as a result. In the poem, whilst taking her children to the park, the woman encounters an ex-lover, briefly discussing their life progression and stating to herself after his departure, that her children 'have eaten [her] alive’. Harwood’s use of this metaphor and hyperbole, shows the affect of the change her choices created, and its impact. The use of symbolism, to a large extent, also portrays the woman’s feelings derived from her sense of imprisonment.

    Read More

  • Human Condition In Gwen Harwood's Poems Father And Child

    527 Words  | 3 Pages

    The narrator’s changing understanding of the inevitability of death across the two sections of the poem illustrates the dynamic and contrasting nature of the human

    Read More

  • The Violets By Gwen Harwood Essay

    898 Words  | 4 Pages

    Gwen Harwood’s poems ‘At Mornington’ and ‘The Violets’ mirror ideas of circulatory nature of life and relationships between contrasting themes. Through images and references to certain motifs, two distinct stories and journeys are reflected, ‘At Mornington’s’ journey of life and death, and ‘The Violets’ story of the squandering of opportunities. The portrayal of certain voices and the displaying of contrasting ideas, the two poems have both similar and dissimilar aspects. Gwen Harwood uses two contrasting personae’s in ‘The Violets’ and a broadening, progressive voice throughout ‘At Mornington’ to reflect the journey of both narrators. Through the use of first-person narration, ‘The Violets’ emerges with a cold, brittle attitude emphasised through short, sharp sentences.

    Read More

  • Theme Of In The Park By Gwen Harwood

    1034 Words  | 5 Pages

    In The Park explores this stripping of one’s identity as it reflects on the darker side to motherhood by using imagery to create an empty and unhappy scene in the park. The first stanza describes how her main role is to be there for her children and that she is now just an empty shell of what she once was. The hyperbole “They have eaten me alive” (Harwood, pg.23) is evidence of this as the woman reflects on her motherly role and that her life is no longer hers. The Violets is an another example of presenting women in this stereotypical role as the mother stays at home with the child while the father is out working as the bread winner. “Into my father’s house” (Harwood, pg.91) enhances these gender roles as the house is considered solely owned by the father and not the parents together.

    Read More

  • Billy Collins Schoolsville Analysis

    742 Words  | 3 Pages

    He could imagine his deception of this town “nestled in a paper landscape,” (Collins 534). This image of the speaker shows the first sign of his delusional ideas of the people in his town. Collins create a connection between the speaker’s teacher teaching life and retired life in lines five and six of the poem. These connections are “ chalk dust flurrying down in winter, nights dark as a blackboard,” which compares images that the readers can picture.

    Read More

  • Visual Techniques Used In The Shoe Horn Sonata And War Photographer

    999 Words  | 4 Pages

    She uses contrast and distinctively visual to give the intended audience a sense of feeling due to the fact that innocent children are involved intending that people care more about children than the adults that see it all, “ A half formed ghost” meaning the dead people is a simile used to make individuals think about what the media portrays this photographer to see and what he actually sees. The unique images an individual sees when they go through such a traumatising experience is expresses through many of the lines throughout the poem, Duffy expresses the hardship of the involvement of war in peoples lives and the feet it has on

    Read More

  • War Photographer And Ozymandias Analysis

    1864 Words  | 8 Pages

    The poem renders conflict as a photographer who battles through his eternal feelings and lightning dispute between the horror of the war and the worlds increasing indifference to the victims of the conflict. Lastly, conflict is explored through the idea of innocence. Conflict is explored through the horror of the war and increasing indifference to the victims of the conflict. This is evident in the line “Spools of sufferings set out in ordered rows”. The use of sibilance highlights this image which creates a suggestion of graves or bodies which also mirrors the actions of the photographer, who lays out his films in "ordered rows", as though in doing so he can in some way help to restore order to this chaotic world.

    Read More

  • Literary Techniques Used In Philip Larkin's Essay 'Here'

    601 Words  | 3 Pages

    In this environment, he is “facing the sun,” happy, open, and free. In closing, Philip Larkin uses literary techniques to make his point in his passage. He utilizes imagery and strong diction to convey his attitude toward the places he describes. Because of this, it can be understood that the speaker is unsatisfied with the crowded city and the habits of its residents.

    Read More

  • The Journey Mary Oliver Analysis

    1101 Words  | 5 Pages

    She begins with a cynical voice stating, “kept shouting their bad advice” (Oliver), in order to widen the eyes of the audience. She does this to show that the other voices are driven by their own self-interest. Their guidance is useless in her journey. Halfway through the poem she switches to an optimistic voice by saying “as you left their voices behind, the stars began to burn through the sheets of clouds” (Oliver). This line shows hope and a vision of a positive future.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of The Troubles By Seamus Heaney

    1014 Words  | 5 Pages

    To convey the brutality and animosity of “The Troubles”, Seamus Heaney expressed his thought-provoking opinions in the form of poetry. His collection of poems called “North” specifically portray the violent and hatred of The Troubles during 1968 to 1998. The Troubles refer to the sectarian warfare and division between the United Kingdom and Ireland. During this time period, political infighting occurred and caused conflicts that eventually lead to a bloody and brutal war. The North collection utilises various historical context while also stylistically allude to the bygone era of the Vikings and the discovery of the bog bodies of the Northern Europe in order to emphasis the endless occurrence of brutality and violent events.

    Read More

More about Stealing And Education For Leisure By Carol Ann Duffy

Open Document