The persona felt very tired, angry and fustrated over teaching her students in the first three stanzas of the poem. The poet used alliteration "hate to hunt" to show her fustration over her students. The word "hate" shows that her students were very unwilling to learn and dislikes it a lot.
The poet used metaphors to show her anger over the students. By calling them "pack of unruly hounds", it shows how angry the persona is over them. The poet also wrote "they tugged the leash", it showed why she was so angry with them, because they were so unwilling to cooperate with the persona that they tried to escape from her lessons. The poet also used metaphors to show how tired the persona was, by writing "kindle my will to a flame". She was feeling very depressed by the indifference and insults from her students, so she was left with little will.
The poet used puns to show her tiredness and fustration. The poet wrote "a full threescore of insults", to show literary that there were a full sixty number of insults written over pages, but she also just wanted to show that there were a lot of insults written about her, so the persona felt very tired and fustrated. "slovenly work that they have offered me", offering people usually means to give something that they want to them, but in this case, the students were indeed offering the persona something, but not exactly what the quality that she wanted, so she felt very fustrated. Then the persona is "sick", she felt sick and tired of taking the toll of her students, but she may be really sick because of her students' indifference and insults. The persona felt very tired of teaching her unruly students.
1b. How is the tone of anger in this poem illustrated?
The tone of anger in this poem is illustrated through the choice of words, personification and metaphors.
The poet used words like "unruly" to describe her students, this shows that the persona is very angry with them as "unruly" means that she feel that the students are out of control and very hard to discipline. The poet also used "what on earth" and "what is the point" when the persona exclaims, which shows her anger and fustration over her students. She exaggerated to the point of "beating their heads to the wall" during her lesson and showed that she is angered and fustrated by her students' unruliness.
The poet used personification to describe her students as "unruly hounds", which meant that they are like undisciplined dogs, as she is very angry about them. And they "tugged at the leash" as if the students were dogs tied by a leash, and they were trying their best to escape, showed how angry the persona would have been if she had been the owner.
The poet used metaphors to describe the students as "hounds" which also meant that the students are despicable people, showing her anger over them.