Question: How is the relationship between the lady

and the man presented in The Laboratory?

The Laboratory is set in the Ancien Rgime which is before the French revolution.
This poem is about an extremely jealous lady who wants to poison her lovers
mistress. She speaks in a dramatic monologue which only tells us her view of the
affair between her lover and the lady he is with.
The speaker is greatly infatuated with this man, and is prepared to go great lengths
in order to get rid of her rival; the mistress. She decides to poison the mistress as a
means of ridding her of the man so that she may be with him. She uses the
metaphor of a devils smithy to describe the laboratory, as though she is calling
the place the devils own workshop, which shows that she knows that what she is
doing is evil. She also repeats herself. ...while they laugh, laugh at me... By
repeating her words, we can see that she is emphasising her anger with them for
thinking they could mock her and expect her to flee to the drear empty church.
She dismisses their thoughts by dramatically announcing, with a pause to give the
reader time to think and also creates drama, I am here, despite their thoughts of
her weeping; she is busy planning a painful death for the mistress. This shows may
infer that the feelings she has for this man are not being requited, and that he may
not feel about her the way she feels about him. This may add to her fury and anger
towards the lady, and give her the delusion that killing her off would mean that the
man would turn his attention to her.
The speaker chants her words with the use of alliteration. ...moisten and mash up
thy paste, pound at thy powder... This makes it sound like she is chanting a spell,
making her seem witch-like and creepy. It also seems as though her obsession with
this man is driving her insane, making her seem like a mad witch as she thinks it
better sit thus, and observe thy strange things, than go where men wait me and
dance at the Kings. From this we can see that she may be of a high status, and
that she is popular. However she would much rather watch the apothecary mix
these strange poisons than dance with men who would like to dance with her at
the ball. This shows her determination to achieve her goal of killing the mistress.
She inquisitively questions the apothecary about the many poisons and liquids in his
laboratory. That in the mortar you call that a gum? Quick - is it finished? her use
of rhetorical questions and curiosity implies that she is very eager, excited and
interested in the making of the poison. Suddenly her imagination starts to run wild
and she imagines herself owning all the poisons in the laboratory. Had I but all of
them, thee and thy treasures, what a wild crowd of invisible pleasures! She dreams
about being able to carry pure death in everyday items, such as earrings, a
casket... This may be that her extreme obsession with this man may be making her
insane, as she is desperate to have him to herself.

Ramla Anshur 11P

December 2013

The speaker eerily describes the poison as if it is a beautiful thing to be fascinated by.
She describes the trees as brave that give out gold oozing used for making
poisons that taste sweetly. By her describing the poisons as delicate and
beautiful, it further highlights her madness and instability, as no sane person would
be so eager to use poison to kill someone and call the very poison beautiful.
She also lists all the ladies who may seem as rivals, and lists their attributes. She lists
what may be seen as attractive about them. Her head, and her breast, and her
arms, and her hands... By separating each part of her body, she makes them seem
like separate entities that she is jealous of, that may also be more beautiful than she
is. By having a great aversion towards Pauline, Elise and all these ladies shows
her possessive behaviour over this man, and that she may feel insecure.
Her possessive behaviour and instability is further highlighted when she offers all her
wealth to the apothecary just to have the lethal poison she wants. She uses the
metaphor of gorge gold to you fill to tell the apothecary he can take whatever he
wants, to his fill, and that she doesnt care. She also offers herself to him and gives
the apothecary the choice of kissing her on her mouth.
The speaker in the poem only plans to kill her lovers mistress and not him. She tells
the apothecary not to spare her the pain because she wants her rival to feel pain
when she is dying, and for the proof to remain. This means that she wants the
poison to burn through her rival, and to bite into its grace because she may be
jealous of her rivals beauty, and wants not only for her to be hurt when dying, but
for her lover to witness her death so that he may be psychologically scarred and the
horror of her face to stick in his mind. However the reason why she doesnt want to
kill him is because she loves him too much to get rid of him however upset with him
she may be, but would do anything to get rid of rivalry.
The poem is structured in rhyming couplets, and this adds to the creepiness of the
poem, making it seems like an evil spell being chanted by the witch-like
psychopathic speaker of the poem. The poem also ends with a cliff-hanger,
creating drama at the end because we do not know how this ends, and how the
relationship between the lady and the man develops, or ends.

Ramla Anshur 11P

December 2013