Poetry

Question 1

‘In these poems (Browing, Crabbe, Wilde), society plays a crucial role in the crimes that are committed’. To what extent do you agree.

Question 2

FOR

In ‘Peter Grimes’ society acilitates his crimes.

Firstly, the society in the UK (workhouse gives Peter access to inflicit suffering in them and they are treated like slaves / they do not care) - the boys suffering through the workhouse syteme that allows young Peter Grimes access to these vulnerable boys.

Answer 2

• “toiling slaves”
• “Piteous Orphans”
• “workhouse clearing men…qould parish boys to needy tradesmen bind”
• “another boy with equal ease”
• “still have they being”

Question 3

Furthermore, Aldbrugh society facilitates Peters crime (they do not interfere / ask questions / punish him)

Answer 3

• “none inquired how Peter used the rope”
• “Grimes is at his excercise”
• “much they suspected, but they little proved / and peter passed untrouble and unmoved”

Question 4

In BORG, society is the worst criminal as they treat criminals in a criminal way.

Answer 4

• “what him when he tries to weep / and when he tries to pray”
• “with the yellow face of doom” - legal justice is shows as monstrous
• “with yawning mouth the yellow hole” - has been charcterises as demonic, prison gaurds are meant to provide human justce but they provide hellish punishment
• “gave him to the fies…mocked the swollen purple throat and the strak and staring eyes”
• “we tore the tarry rope to shreds with blunt and bleeding nails…”
• “they hanged him as a beast is hang’d” / “nimble feet danced upon the air”
• “Prayer strangled into a scream”

Question 5

AGAINST

Peter is inhernetly criminal and was ‘born evil’ (the crimes will probaly still happen whether they were the drving force)

Answer 5

• “knew not justice”
• “laughed at law”
• “rage”
• “but no success could please his cruel soul”
• “he wished for onr to trouble and control”

Question 6

Peter’s father aruguably is the driving force behind Peter’s criminality ebcause Peter recapitulates the potential abuse he experineced as a child.

Answer 6

• “and took young Peter in his hand to pray”
• unusual “shed”
• “a fathers pleasure, when his toil was done”
• “to plague and torture thus an only son”

Question 7

In ‘My Last Duchess’ and ‘Porphyria’s Lover’ we embody the voice of the persona meaning we share their perspective and understand why their delusions and aestheticisation plays a crucial role in the crimes that are committed.

Answer 7

• “…if they durst”
• “…my lady’s wrist…faint half flush that dies along her throat…spot of joy”
• “She has a heart - how shall I say? - too soon made glad” - ironic that he is trying to be euphemistic about his wife’s sexual behaviour but then admits to killing her.

Question 8

BORG : the guardsman in real life is a horrible man and a criminal and society ignores the inherent criminality in the guardsman.

Answer 8

• “Do some damage” / “he’d a razor to her throat in the street”
• “Poor dead woman…murdered in her bed” - likening the murder to Othello (tragic hero) / comparison to Christ - “blood and wine are red…blood and wine in his hands…”
• “A cricket cap was in his head” -he is arrogant as he has just killed his wife, not taking prison seriously.
• “Brave men does it with a sword…” - fully expressing his doomed and tragic nature