Structure, form and tone
Poem banned from schools over knife crime fears
• The poem is in five stanzas, each of
four lines (quatrains). They are
unrhymed and the metre is not regular.
The lines are mostly end stopped, and
every stanza concludes with a full stop.
• The egotism of the speaker appears in
the repeated use of “I”.
• no explicit mention of violence - focus
on the message that Duffy is trying to
convey.
• predominantly end-stopped line with
the use of caesura - reflects his
emotional and mental state. incoherent,
erratic.
• colloquial language - reflects the
speaker's social and economical
background.
• lack of emotive language.
caesura - short, declaratory statement.
Spontaneous statement at the start of the
stanza.
anthropomorphism - speaker believed the
cat is able to comprehend humanistic
qualities i.e. intelligence, shows that he is
insensitive and unable to comprehend
emotions.
Theme
1. Failure of Society to address widespread social and
economic inequalities
• Speaker is recognisable stereotype whose social
disaffection represents a segment of society that we
might wish to ignore but are uncomfortably pushed to
face, contemplate, and might even feel sympathetic
• While some readers view the speaker in ‘Education for
Leisure’ as an evolving psychopath, the title veers
towards presenting the youth as a victim of educational
and economic policies.
• Protagonists speak in ordinary vernacular and push at
the boundary between a normative and exceptional
psyche. Whilst seemingly unhinged, he is also relatable
and represent the common man.
• Depicts the failure of traditional education on troubled
youth. Where society had failed to provide adequate
support, recognition and opportunities for all which lead
to the speaker's feeling of frustration and destructive
behaviour.
Context
• once a set text in GCSE examinations.
• poem written when Duffy was teaching a school in an
underprivileged Area of East London as a visiting poet and
poem responds to the social conditions she observed there.
• wrote the poem in the 1980’s, during the time when Margaret
Thatcher was prime minister. She relates the school’s policy of
exclusion of disruptive and difficult pupils with political policies
of the time.
• promotion of conservative governmental policies, prioritises
the promotion of private property rights, i.e. less taxes.
• This meant that many of the more vulnerable and
underprivileged parts of society suffered educationally and
economically.
connotation - assuming a role that is of a
higher order, using the role to manipulate
aspect of life and/ or the natural order.
Shoes the hubris of the speaker or the
desperation of the speaker to stand out.
from the rest of society.
pathetic fallacy - attributing the grey sky
with his boredom, amplifies his feeling of
loneliness and loss of meaning.
alliteration and diction - something is
happening. foreshadowing the events to
come.
act of violence that is unwarranted or
irrational - reflecting the speaker's state of
mind or him committing this act of violence
for his own satisfaction.
metaphor - speaker's feels a sense of
superiority that is hindered by society. Not
receiving the same chance as others.
echos the rhetoric perpetuated by schools.
Partly to blame for the speaker's
predicament?
murdering as changing the world - perhaps
the only way for the speaker to create an
impact on society, medium of expressing
himself.
colloquial language - register to receive
unemployment benefit/ check, reveals that
he is of age, unemployed and is considered
a failure under the conventional education
system, wider societal issue.
Theme
2. Alienation and Isolation
• speaker desires a connection with others and
establish physical contact with the outer world.
• speaker's isolation from the rest of society,
loneliness and isolation played a part in his
violence and anger.
• segments of society are cut-off from the rest of
society.
A poem taught to thousands of schoolchildren every year has been
dropped amid fears it could fuel knife crime.
By Graeme Paton, Education Editor
03 September 2008 • 12:46pm
Britain's biggest examination board removed the work from an English
GCSE syllabus because of its violent content. The poem has been
included in an anthology - aimed at 15 and 16-year-olds - since 2004,
despite protests from teachers. Now the Assessment and
Qualifications Alliance (AQA) has bowed to pressure and lifted it from
the GCSE collection. It has written to schools advising them to destroy
copies of the anthology containing the contentious verse - saying the
"I think we have gone through a period
board will replace them with an updated version. Examiners insisted
when too many children and people have
the poem had been a "popular choice" for pupils, who are given the
been given to understand ‘I have a problem,
opportunity to discuss the narrator's state of mind. In one test,
it is the Government’s job to cope with it!’ or
teenagers were asked to discuss how the poem portrays anti-social
‘I have a problem, I will go and get a grant to
behaviour. But a spokesman said AQA had received a fresh complaint
cope with it!’ ‘I am homeless, the
and - fuelled by concerns over a rise in teenage knife crime - the
Government must house me!’ and so they
board had now decided to drop it. Some schools already refuse to use
are casting their problems on society and
the poem amid fears its content would provoke pupils.
who is society? There is no such thing!
There are individual men and women and
there are families and no government can
do anything except through people and
people look to themselves first."
Hook that shooks the readers from the very
starts of unassumingly - similar to a diary
start.
entry. colloquial language. Suggest a failure in education?
archaic language as "another language"
repetition/ diacope - repetition with a few
caesura. something - letting it sink in.
words in between. Speaker fails to
Education for Leisure understand the significance of death.
expresses frustration of being shunned by
Today I am going to kill something. Anything. society.
I have had enough of being ignored and today
I am going to play God. It is an ordinary day, speaker misunderstood or took an
juxtaposition - decision of the speaker to alternative interpretation of the moral of the
a sort of grey with boredom stirring in the streets.
commit an act of violence with the mundane story. Instead of fearing the suffering of
day. Perhaps shows that the boredom that men at the hands of uncontrollable events,
the speaker is experiencing or his unstable he decided to took control or assume the
I squash a fly against the window with my thumb.
trail of thought. role of god in the same way that the tragic
We did that at school. Shakespeare. It was in character had lamented on.
another language and now the fly is in another language.
I breathe out talent on the glass to write my name. allusion to the tragic sense of
powerlessness uttered by Shakespeare’s
reflects Gloucester's despair and the belief
Gloucester in King Lear "As flies to wanton
that human beings are like insignificant
I am a genius. I could be anything at all, with half boys are we to the gods. / They kill us for
insects in the eyes of the gods.
their sport’ (King Lear Act 4: 1)—and takes
the chance. But today I am going to change the world.
the youth’s predicament to an existentially metaphor compares humanity to flies, and
Something’s world. The cat avoids me. The cat human level. the gods are portrayed as reckless boys
who have the power to toy with and destroy
knows I am a genius, and has hidden itself.
human lives for their amusement.
Boredom produces one violent act that
reflects the sense of helplessness and the
leads to another: fed up with destroying
I pour the goldfish down the bog. I pull the chain. lack of control that Gloucester feels in the
creatures in the home, the protagonist steps
face of the tragic events unfolding in the
I see that it is good. The budgie is panicking. outside and threatens violence.
play.
Once a fortnight, I walk the two miles into town
the line convey a bleak outlook on life,
for signing on. They don’t appreciate my autograph. highlighting the idea that human beings are
repetition, speaker feels the need to mere playthings at the mercy of higher
constantly reaffirm his superiority over powers who may inflict suffering upon them
There is nothing left to kill. I dial the radio others, even towards inhuman objects. without reason.
and tell the man he’s talking to a superstar.
He cuts me off. I get our bread-knife and go out.
biblical allusion to the Book of Genesis - to
diction - describing his signature as an
The pavements glitter suddenly. I touch your arm. echo the creation story in Genesis. After
autograph, disgruntled by the fact that
each day's work of creation, the bible reads
people do not recognise him for his
“God saw that it was good”. The speaker
supposed intelligence - suggesting that
here wishes to “play God”, but he can only
these people are being overlooked by
destroy where God and Shakespeare
society.
create. Inability for the speaker to express
ominous and chilling - suggestion that the his creativity.
speaker has now killed most of the inhuman
contrast between the everyday colloquial
objects that he had encountered.
language and his decision to "play god"
suggestion of violence - line establishes a
hyperbolic (exaggeration), being cut off -
link between the rejection received from the Second person "you" - challenges the
speaker's attempt for human connection or
speaker by the rest of society to the indirect readers directly, issue is not to be ignored
perhaps asserting his worth to society.
reference to the knife-crime that he about by the rest of society as it could be the
to commit. readers who might be the speaker's next
target (the issue is universal).
pathetic fallacy - glittering, moment of
foreshadows his attack.
happiness, mood changes from grey to a
sense of energy.