Robert Browning 's “The Laboratory” tells of a powerful, rich woman and her plans of poisoning the new woman her lover now admires with the help of a chemist. Her plan is to create a poison that she’ll implant into a piece of jewelry and give to the women during the King’s ball. Robert portrays this character as someone who is thirsty for vengeance and even death upon others, to the point of almost killing herself in the process. It’s symbolic for the time period Robert wrote his work in, since at the time scientists were powerful and respected, but through this poem shows how with great power comes great responsibility and consequences. Through literary and poetic devices, Robert Browning reveals the underlying insanity of wealth through …show more content…
In the fifth stanza of the poem, the speaker describes her plan of action for what the type of gift she will implant her poison into, quoting “Had I but all of them, thee and thy treasures, What a wild crowd of invisible pleasures! To carry pure death in an earring, a casket, A signet, a fan-mount, a filigree basket!” (Browning) Here the speaker mentions the type of gifts she could give to the new lover, but Robert uses rhyme in an interesting way to help catch the reader 's attention and really emphasize wealth. He uses couplet rhymes with words like “treasure and pleasure” and “casket and basket” to give the stanza a pleasant, elegant tone. All her wealth gives this speaker a false sense of security, since she believes that with all the money she has she can do anything, even say make a poison to kill someone with. The combination of her wealth and this strange obsession for vengeance proves to be a dangerous later on. The speaker’s compulsive thoughts become more intense in stanzas six and seven, but this time she begins to narrow in on her target. She quotes “And Elise, with her head, And her breast and her arms and her hands, should drop dead!… Let it brighten her drink, let her turn it and stir, And try it and taste, ere she fix and prefer!” (Browning) Here the speaker moves from thinking about “them” and focuses more on “her,” the new lover. Alliteration and repetition are littered all
In stanza 12, she tells us that he has “bit her pretty red heart in two.” Next, she states that he died when she was ten, and when she was twenty years old, she attempted suicide - “…I tried to die, to get back back back to you.” In stanza 13 is where she starts talking about her husband. She says that instead of dying, her friends “stuck her together with glue,” and since she could not die to get back to her father, she would marry someone who was similar.
The third stanza goes on to define the pain, only now in more emotional terms, such as "It hurts to thwart the reflexes / of grab, of clutch" (14-15), as well as the pain of continuously having to say good bye, each perhaps as if for the last time: "to love and let / go again and again" (15-16). These lines reinforce the impression that the first stanza's definition of "to love differently" is in fact an anti-freedom or state of emotional anarchy, now using words like "pester" to describe any separation; the poet is compelled "to remember / the lover who is not in the bed" (16), hinting at obsessive tendencies as being possible components of the relationship. We also learn that she believes love requires work, which she cannot do without her partner's assistance, and that this lack of cooperation frustrates her. She believes this neglected effort is the other party's fault by his failure to do his fair share, thereby leaving her own efforts ineffective, the whole of it characterized as an effort "that gutters like a candle in a cave / without air" (19-20). Her demands of this work are quite broad, encompassing being "conscious, conscientious and concrete" in her efforts and optimistically calling this work "constructive" (20-21) before ending the stanza.
The book written by Christopher R. Browning titled Ordinary Men is an interesting, engaging, anomaly in the genre of non-fiction books pertaining to the topic of World War Two and the Holocaust. Browning’s analysis of what possessed ordinary German men, who’s ideas where non pertinent in relation to Nazism is one worthy of academic study and discourse. Browning is delving into the intricacies of what specifically pushed “ordinary” men in the Reserve Police Battalions 101 of Nazi Germany to perpetrate the action of moving thousands of Polish Jewry into box cars, and sequentially taking part in perhaps the worst enormity in human history. Browning’s argument is an ever unsettling one, an argument that reveals to the reader what “normal” people
Stanza three opens with relating “menthol” and “eggshell” (9). Other than what “menthol” actually is, the reader is obligated to figure out its characteristics (9). I would say its traits are minty and fresh. And how would one define “eggshell” (9)? What’s leftover? This could easily be an argument stating that he is original and new, while she is always a little more bland and derivative. The next sentence states that while the bride is “atrocious”, he is equivalent to “spellcheck” (10). This is a statement that means that whenever
Robert Browning uses descriptive details to portray a theme of how darkness rises from warmth and happiness by showing us on how a man’s love for someone makes him turn to savagery. The narrator of the poem has very deep feelings for his lover, but he only thinks of himself and he never wants the girl to leave his side so he does the unthinkable. In the times that the girl was not home or was not with the narrator then there was coldness and darkness, but when she was with the man then the house would “blaze up, and all the cottage warm”. She created hope and the narrator needed that constantly, so he realized that his love was too strong to put on hold everyday when she would leave. The fact that the narrator had to watch his lover leave everyday
The poem’s structure as a sonnet allows the speaker’s feelings of distrust and heartache to gradually manifest themselves as the poem’s plot progresses. Each quatrain develops and intensifies the speaker’s misery, giving the reader a deeper insight into his convoluted emotions. In the first quatrain, the speaker advises his former partner to not be surprised when she “see[s] him holding [his] louring head so low” (2). His refusal to look at her not only highlights his unhappiness but also establishes the gloomy tone of the poem. The speaker then uses the second and third quatrains to justify his remoteness; he explains how he feels betrayed by her and reveals how his distrust has led him
In her book Recollections, Browning describes what poetry means to herself. She explained that it “became a distinct object with me; an object to read, think, and live for” (Preston xii). Browning was described as a strong woman-poet who had little to no training. She came from the “Italian hills into a prim English feminine household, and inevitably assuming there that attitude of superiority to
Christopher Browning is an American historian whose research mainly focuses on Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. Browning has been teaching about this specific field for thirty years, since 1974. He has published many different notable books in regards to Nazi Germany and the events that occurred during the time of the Holocaust. Some of the books written by Browning are, Remembering Survival: Inside a Nazi Slave Labor Camp (2010), The Final Solution and the German Foreign Office (1978), and Nazi Policy, Jewish Workers, German Killers (2000). Browning is best known for his publication of his book, Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland. Ordinary Men admired all around the world by many individuals and gives a detailed story about the reserve police battalion during the 1940s.
Initially, Barrett Browning’s misunderstanding of love implies her innocence, apparent in the utilisation of direct speech in Sonnet I, “Not Death, but Love,”, emphasising her surprise. However, as the sonnets progress her views are altered and Sonnet XIV accentuates Barrett Browning’s yearning to be loved and urges Browning to reemphasise his love, “But love me for love’s sake, that evermore thou mayst love on, through love’s eternity,”. Imperative voice and diction indicates Barrett Browning’s preoccupation for an everlasting love that is not influenced by superficial circumstances. This notion is reiterated in Sonnet XXI, “Say thou dost love me, love me, love me,”. Imperative tone is utilised, urging Browning to repeatedly express his love for her. The idealised love that EBB envisions can surpass even Death, reflected in her Victorian
The significance of the rhyming couplets at the end of the poem emphasizes the pain that the speaker feels, he laments, “So that I wink or else hold down my head, because your blazing eyes my bale have bred” (13-14). These rhyming couplets portray the feeling of desire and the torture inflicts on
In the book “Ordinary Men” by Christopher R. Browning, he shows a different side of the Germans during the Final Solution, and how not every last one was a terrible person, by explaining how some men would hide from killing, opt out altogether, or say they were just following orders. Though there were still some who embraced their newly found jobs, this book argues there was still a sense of morality, but does not excuse the acts that took place. However, as much as the perpetrators were emotionally scarred, and this book does show us that, there are still some flaws in the content used to write this book.
look at but he feels as if the Duchess takes him for granted and she
The finest woks of Browning endeavor to explain the mechanics of human psychology. The motions of love, hate, passion, instinct, violence, desire, poverty, violence, and sex and sensuousness are raised from the dead in his poetry with a striking virility and some are even introduced with a remarkable brilliance.
The use of rhyming quickens the pace of the poem, adding to the woman's increasing excitement as the apothecary grinds up the mixture. Many of Browning's poems were written about people with an unusual nature. At first glance, the poem appears to be written as if she were talking to the apothecary, but reading into it shows that she may be thinking to herself as at the start of the poem she tells the man to take his time, but as she thinks about the possibilities and power the poison will bring her she begins to hurry him. Her careless attitude towards her future crime suggests that she may have previously killed and does not care about being found out as she is proud of what she will have done.
about the duke in the poem by what he says and how he says it. Through