‘Education for Leisure’ by Carol Ann Duffy
Today I am going to kill something. Anything. I have had enough of being ignored and today I am going to play God. It is an ordinary day, a sort of grey with boredom stirring in the streets. I squash a fly against the window with my thumb. We did that at school. hakespeare. It was in another language and now the fly is in another language. I breathe out talent on the glass to write my name. I am a genius. I could be anything at all, with half the chance. !ut today I am going to change the world. omething"s world. The cat avoids me. The cat knows I am a genius, and has hidden itself. I pour the goldfish down the bog. I pull the chain. I see that it is good. The budgie is panicking. #nce a fortnight, I walk the two miles into town for signing on. They don"t appreciate my autograph. There is nothing left to kill. I dial the radio and tell the man he"s talking to a superstar. $e cuts me off. I get our ou r bread%knife and go out. The pavements glitter suddenly. I touch your arm.
This poem is a monologue of anonymous person who is very violent and destructive. The main reason for his&her condition is boredom and being ignored. The speaker decides to take power over his life and to make some changes. In the first stan'a the speaker decides to kill something because his wants to make his life more more intere interest sting ing and dramat dramatic. ic. The speaker speaker says (anyt (anythin hing" g" which which impli implies es that that he is not bothered about who or what he is going g oing to kill because he kills only for pleasure, he doesn"t have some particular reason for killing. In the second verse (I have had enough of being ignored" he displays his anger and frustration. The speaker wants (to play God", to have control over things because he doesn"t want to be ignored anymore. $e wants attention. $e describes ordinary day as (grey with boredom stirring in the streets". The color (grey" indicates something something dull, not interesting interesting or attractive attractive.. In fact, he describes describes his emotions and mood not )ust an ordinary day.
In the second stan'a the speaker"s thoughts from the first stan'a have become reality. $e fulfills his desire to kill something. $e starts with a fly and he says (we did that at school". The speaker mentions hakespeare in negative conte*t because they have different points of view or maybe it is some kind of revenge because he was ignored at school and he couldn"t e*press his creativity and intelligence. $e doesn"t understand hakespeare and because of that he considers him to be in (another language" +in another world. $e doesn"t value hakespeare, a symbol of education, which shows that he is uneducated person. In the final verse he tries to convince us that he is very talented person and that he doesn"t need hakespeare or any other kind of education to be genius and somebody important. $e can do whatever he wants including to (breathe out talent on the glass to write my +his name". In the third stan'a the speaker continues to brag himself. $e considers himself too talented and too intelligent and that he (could be anything at all, with half the chance", without effort. $e wants to change the world, (something"s world" and he is convinced that he has a power to do that. The speaker says that the cat avoids him because it knows he is a genius and he can do everything he wants. !ut the true is that the cat avoids him because it can feel that he has bad intentions. $e e*presses his power through violence, and the only way he can change the world is to destroy it. In the fourth stan'a his victim is a goldfish. $e en)oys the power he has and he thinks that killing these animals is a good thing (I see that it is good". In this stan'a we can see his chase for attention. We can also see that he is unemployed and that he has some social benefits. !ut one more time he encounters re)ection, he is isolated and he doesn"t understand why (they don"t appreciate my +his autograph". In the last stan'a the speaker reali'es that (there is nothing left to kill". The speaker thinks that he should get some kind of pri'e for his deeds, for killing those animals so he calls a radio station. $e considers himself a celebrity- a famous person and that people should be pleased to have a contact with him. !ut again people ignore him, (he cuts me off". This was crucial for him. This evoked something more serious. It is a transition between killing animals and human beings. The speaker thinks that killing animals didn"t help him, he didn"t get attention from other people so he decides to go further by killing people. The last words (I touch your arm" connect the speaker and the reader. It indicates that the first human victim is a reader. We feel like we are directly connected with the speaker. This verse is very dramatic and it is the first time in the poem when the speaker gets attention, the reader"s attention. The title of this poem (ducation for leisure" doesn"t appear anywhere in the poem but we can conclude that it refers to the speaker"s education. The speaker considers himself too educated, too talented, too intelligent and because of that he doesn"t need other education. $e is
unemployed and he has a lot of free time to think about stupid things. Also, we can connect it with the time when the poem is written +in /012s when 3argaret Thatcher was 4rime 3inister. 4eople thought that in schools there was too much time for leisure and very little for education so the title can be considered ironic. The poem has five stan'as. ach stan'a has four lines which are sometimes very short (hakespeare", (I"m a genius", (Another". The poem do esn"t have formal rhyme scheme. The language in the poem is colloquial and informal, and there is a lot of slang in the poem (bog", (superstar". !ut there are some lines which are formal because they refer to hakespeare +(I squash a fly against the window with my thumb" and the !ible +(I see that it is good". This poem is written from a point of view of one unemployed, uneducated person who commits terrible things due to boredom. The poet doesn"t specify the speaker"s gender- we don"t know is it male or female. The speaker is angry, frustrated person because he&she is ignored and doesn"t get attention he&she wants. We can conclude that too much energy and free time can be destructive.
