Poetry - Explore the ways symphaty for and or dislike of character is created in the text you have studied - Essay Example

The poems selected for analysis are Medusa by Carol Ann Duffy, Ozymandias by Percy Shelly and The Clown Punk by Simon Armitage. Medusa by Carol Ann Duffy is a dramatic monologue told in the first person. The character in the poem is an insecure woman who suspects that her husband could be unfaithful to her. She is a monstrous character looks at things and they turn into stones. That is a result of jealousy in her. Many times, people do not like monstrous characters in works of art, because they are scaring.

In medusa, however, empathy and sympathy are evoked in equal measure. Both stem from the fact that the woman’s situation causes her serious suffering and distress. A reader of the poem ends up feeling sympathetic. It may cause them to shed a tear. Her jealousy causes paranoia and this worsens the relationship between her and her husband. It causes damage to her well-being and she struggles to regain her lost identity. Ozymandias is a sonnet and made of fourteen lines. It doesn’t fit any known/conventional Petrarchan pattern.

The rhyme scheme used is strange for a sonnet. It evokes dislike because the character in the poem, Ozymandias, emerges as a proud and a very arrogant type of person. Below is an excerpt. In the poem, the Ozymandias imagines that he is the most powerful individual on earth and that nobody can do some of the things he does. He is boastful and too full of himself. It is usual for people or a reader of this poem to dislike this kind of character. Too much pride and boastfulness evokes dislike, especially if sounds like the character has disregard for others and their abilities.

Generally, even in the bible, it is said that pride precedes destruction and that it comes before a fall. The character makes a huge statue of himself and this tells a lot about his big ego. Later on, the statue is shattered and only its leg and head remains. The poem is a moral narrative that uses quite some metaphors and imagery to pass the