Human Interest Analysis

The poem is about a man who has killed his wife because she was having an affair. It is quite a serious poem, particularly in the first two stanzas. This is directly compromised with the amount of slang used in the poem, such as, “Banged Up” and “I slogged my guts out”. This makes the impression that the he has become mentally unbalanced by the murder of his wife.

The poem, Human Interest is four stanzas long and goes by the rhyming couplets of ABBA. The first and third stanzas are four lines long whereas the second and forth stanza are three lines long. The use of Iambic Pentameter adds rhymical, steady, fluctuating quality to the poem. It also can be considered that the pace is similar to the beat of a heart. This creates tension in this poem as he has murdered his wife.

There is a noticeable mood change in the poem in the third stanza, going from the last sentence in the second stanza, “She stank of deceit,” To the first sentence in the third stanza, “ I loved her.” These are both used to great effect in the poem, not only because they have very different messages, one talks of hate, the other love. However they are both short sentences, going hand-in-hand with the massive contrast of words to create a more tense feeling within the poem.

The use of short sentences if further put to effect in the first stanza. An example of this is in the first stanza,” She turned away. I stabbed.” The use of short sentences is to build tension. The effect is created as the short sentences come after one long sentence that went over two lines and could possibly be a metaphor for how quickly and sudden movement was for the man. She turned away could also have the meaning of She turned away from him and left him for another man and that, ‘Stabbed in the back’ is that the man feels betrayed and so it feels like he stabbed him in the back, so he physically got an knife and stabbed her, to make all equal.

The use of metaphors is greatly used in the poem Human Interest. An example of this is,” I near choke with grief.” This metaphor implies that the man is suffering with guilt and grief from the killing of his wife. Another metaphor,” I’d slogged my guts out for her…” is used to show the level of conflict. The poem, Human Interest, is written in the past tense. By writing in the past tense it is like it is being told like a story. It is believed it is being told like a story because the events of this conflict compares to how horrific a war is. The line,” I’d slogged my guts out for her…” supports the idea of how horrific it is and is used to convey the brutality and emphasis how destructive and the fatality of conflict.