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GCSE AQA ENGLISH LIT SPEC.A PLEASE HELP! and I will try to help you!

Rose.1994

have just begun to write this essay, but really need some opinion into how I'm doing etc and what grade I would get for an essay like this. also, what improvement would you suggest?

Compare the ways feelings are presented in ‘Anne Hathaway’, ‘Kid’, ‘My Last Duchess’ and ‘The Laboratory’ (36 Marks)
‘Anne Hathaway’, ‘Kid’, ‘The Laboratory’ and ‘My Last Duchess’ all describe one person’s feelings for another person. ‘Anne Hathaway’ describes a mutual and passionate love, “the bed we loved in”, whilst ‘Kid’ talks about anger and resentment towards a “father figure”, who is referred to “Batman” to give a sense of irony. He feels “Batman” has “let me loose to wander”, let go of him and “left me isolated in the gutter”, this triggers a sense of sympathy from the reader. On the other hand, the narrators of ‘My Last Duchess’ and ‘The Laboratory’ both have sinister feelings of bitterness towards a lover. In ‘My Last Duchess’, the reader gets the impression that the poet has killed his wife when he drops sinister comments such as “as if she were alive”, whilst in ‘The Laboratory’, the woman wants to kill the lover of the men she loves, she says “let death be felt”. Therefore, both of these poems deal with the idea of murder as a response to deep, but perhaps insane, feelings of jealousy.
‘Anne Hathaway’ is set out as a sonnet. This is a tribute to her late husband Shakespeare, whom the poem is about, as he wrote many sonnets. It could also be a way of symbolising her love for him, as he did for her in his sonnets. The sonnet form backs up feelings of love described in the poem such as “my living laughing love”. ‘Kid’ is also set out in the form of one single stanza but is longer, so not in the form of a sonnet. This structure could represent how all the feelings the narrator has “now I’m the real boy wonder”, are linked directly back to how he felt when “Batman”, “let me loose to wander leeward”. At that point, he felt betrayed and bitter but that has led to him feeling triumphant and free from the relationship which made him feel like a “ball boy”. This form could also be a way of showing the narrators feelings of anger, his whole life is represented as one stanza, all revolved around his feelings of bitterness and betrayal due to his abandonment from “Batman” at the beginning of his life, the beginning of the poem. He cannot separate himself from this, no matter how much he tries to put the impression across that he is over it. The form of ‘My Last Duchess’ is also one long stanza. This, however, is because of his speech to the “sir” he is talking to. In speech form, despite it being a conversation, the poet shows that the narrator does not allow a word in edgeways. This could be due to a feeling of anxiety as to the truth being uncovered to him killing his wife, emphasised by references such as “Half-flush that dies along her throat”. These sinister comments with words such as “dies” cause suspicion in the reader. ‘The Laboratory’ is the only one of these four poems which is split into stanzas. These separate stanzas represent the stages of making the poison and how she has many thoughts towards it. She skips back and forth from present, past and future showing her confusion and maybe insanity plays a role in these feelings.
‘Anne Hathaway’ is written in the 1st tense, “I hold him”. The 1st tense represents that the love between them is very personal and unique, nobody would feel it in the same way as them. This backs up the point “my lover’s words were shooting stars”, shooting stars are commonly referred to wishes and magic, pointing out that there love was almost impossible, therefore nobody else would be able to feel it and that is why she has been given the “second best bed”, everybody else would think that is strange and that she should be given the best bed but Anne Hathaway understands why she has been given it as she is the one who was Shakespeare’s lover, the one who feels closest to him. ‘Kid’ is written in the 2nd tense, however, in order to give a sense of direct address. This is to speak directly to “Batman”, and to make him feel what has happened to the one he used to be a “father figure” for. The narrator wants to feel triumphant over “Batman” and this is a way of doing so. Direct address is also a way of making the reader understand how much hurt abandonment causes, and warns them not to do the same thing.