The World’s Wife is a collection of witty and dramatic poems by Carol Ann Duffy, which takes a female perspective through different characters, stories, historical events, and myths. The original stories focus on legendary men, but Duffy takes a feminist approach to each tale and presents them in an altered fashion, showing the women who were hidden behind the dominant power of the male and gives the reader a different insight to well-known titles through a feminine outlook. Likewise, Feminine Gospels focuses on the female identity throughout history and creates different visualisations to portray the female aspect of situations, later making them more personal, attempting to reveal everything a woman can do. The poems tell the stories as if they were confessions and take a twist on modern folklores and Barker argues that Duffy’s use of language helps the female viewpoint be recognised and given an identity, which can be seen more predominantly in the anthology The World’s Wife as Duffy explores the ideology of a female centred society in a way that suppresses patriarchy.
Despite being in different anthologies, both Queen Herod and The Long Queen explore the view of women through a superior mind with Queen Herod watching over her baby girl and Queen Elizabeth watching over every female through their childhood and adulthood, giving an insight into females who already have power but still feel inferior and almost impotent in their position. Centuries ago women were expected to have husbands no matter what status they had, but here we see how women take on both the instrumental and expressive role which is possibly Duffy’s aim at showing the reader how women are able to have these dual burdens in society. In Duffy’s poem Queen Herod, she changes the Biblical narrative of King Herod ordering the murder of first-born boys and instead attributes the killings to his wife. King Herod’s wife expresses this opposing story and wants to protect her new-born daughter. The poem has a rather ominous opening which sets the scene of winter: “Ice in the trees. / Three Queens at the Palace gates,” the assonant vowels create a slow pace, which allows the poem to ease into the newly written story of the new-born Jesus and is extremely important in establishing the rhythm and steadiness of the poem. The “Palace” is very mysterious but represents royalty and high-status, with the “Three Queens” being a gender-male inverted version of the Three Kings allowing us to understand Duffy’s intentions easily as this is a well-known story. Towards the end of the first stanza Duffy uses shortened lines to build up tension: “with everyone fast asleep, save me, / those vivid three – / till bitter dawn” . “save me” can be seen as a plea for help and the “bitter dawn” seen as threatening, creating an ominous setting, along with the caesura pause possibly representing the speaker’s anticipation. Generally, a baby boy was valued in Roman times, especially in royalty as they would take up the throne and be the heir, however, in this parallel story it is a new-born baby girl that Queen Herod speaks of. The assonance used creates a calm and quiet atmosphere around the new-born baby, yet rather than the star being a remarkable symbol, it is instead seen as a threat as it signifies the birth of a boy who will threaten the Queen’s daughter. “a new star / pierced through the night like a nail” . This contrasts to the bright and beautiful star commonly seen in the Biblical tale and is now depicted as shrill, harmful and unfriendly and like Jesus being nailed to the cross, foreshadows the pain the little girl will suffer. The connection between the speaker and the black Queen continues to grow and becomes quite intimate as “the black Queen scooped out [her] breast, the left” . The use of the left breast embodies love and passion as it is closer to the heart, but this love and passion could be seen for both the baby and the Black Queen, and also significant in considering how God resurrected Jesus and their relationship, as if they are co-equal as stated, then we would expect their relationship to be that of equals. However, there is evidence that this is not the case as the relationship between God and Jesus is similar to that between husband and wife: “The head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God”. Duffy may have incorporated this concept to signify the relationships between men and women and how we do not live in a gender equal world. This could also link back to the idea of the male-dominated world in which we exist in contrast to the previous stanza, Duffy uses a vivid description of real life, opposed to the eternal emotions that we see the mother have, such as the use of onomatopoeia, the sibilance, the assonance in “spat” and “snatched” and the consonance of “mead” and “maid” which stresses the harsh reality of life in comparison to the beautiful image of mother and baby. Further on in the stanza the Queen’s life is again accentuated and we see the true life of royalty and what it’s like for her being a woman: “And splayed that night / below Herod’s fusty bulk, / I saw the fierce eyes of the black Queen” , for the Queen, sex with the King is a responsibility for her and is described distastefully through the use of language such as “splayed”, and with the use of the fricative sounds and consonant of “bulk”, shows the pressure that the Queen has to go through with this unaffectionate relationship. The sibilance used also acts as a warning as it sounds rather harsh and forceful, again representing the Queen and her husband’s relations, thus why the Queens is so worried about the future of this young baby girl. This use of language is more powerful in representing Duffy’s viewpoints on men than in the Long Queen as she portrays a negative image of something that should be seen as beautiful in the eyes of most. There is a sense of reflection of fear and guilt towards the end of the poem, yet the Queens feel proud of themselves. “We do our best, / we Queens, we mothers, / mothers of Queens. / We wade through blood / for our sleeping girls.” Here the change in structure to tercets finalizes the poem, creating a reflective atmosphere and shows the extent to which mothers will go to protect which is described in metaphorical terms. The repetition of “we” shows the unity of these women and the enjambment in the final stanzas possibly signify the soothing “lullabies” that the Queen will sing to her baby daughter, but may also be trying to mask the brutality along with the use of anaphora which again creates a sense of togetherness. In contrast to this, The Long Queen seems to be a poem about Queen Elizabeth I, the Queen who brought an end to the Tudor rule and is often remembered for never marrying. This poem talks about the Queen who looks over every single female in the world, notably through childhood, menstruation and childbirth. “The Long Queen couldn’t die” . This could be interpreted in two ways, one being that she has had a long reign on the throne and the other being that the Queen is immortal and has had an extremely powerful effect on mankind so can never die in our minds. Duffy then moves on into a list to make a point which we can see throughout a lot of her poems: “the earl, the foreign prince, the heir to the duke, the lord, the baronet, the count” , this list is a list of acquisitions and represents high authority, powerful roles and royalty, which could also represent the only people the Queen can mix with as these are the rules of the monarchy, allowing the reader to comprehend the situation in which the Queen lives, possibly stopping her from establishing her true identity. The Queen is also seen as rather mythical in this poem which could also be said about Queen Herod, as she is only spoken about by others, and portrayed as a woman of all kind: “Women, girls…witches, widows, wives, mothers of all these…Unseen, she ruled and reigned; some said…sorting the bad from the good”. The alliterative repetition of “some said” could suggest her mythological status, but also her isolation even though she is a very powerful woman. The listing shows her representation and unison of women in all roles and how her “word of law was in their bones” , displaying how her rule was in all parts of their lives, showing a true femininity as she was welcomed as Queen. The “laws” that the Queen also address include taboo topics and are listed in the poem as childhood, blood, tears and childbirth and include matters such as the menstrual cycle: “Blood: proof, in the Long Queen’s colour, / royal red, of intent; the pain when a girl / first bled to be insignificant”. There is a sense of nostalgia here with the phrase “when a girl first bled” but also a sense of negligibility towards the girl’s first menstruation as it is often avoided as a subject yet the Queen aspires to make these taboo subjects known and spoken about despite it being seen as “insignificant”, which Duffy may have incorporated to represent her own thoughts on how women are viewed overall. Childbirth, a unique experience to women, is given negative connotations with the sibilance of “screamed scarlet” to portray agony along with the “sore flowers” to emphasise this but also give it a sense of beauty, and the archetypally commemorative moment of childbirth is contrasted with the child “slithering” and “bawling” and we see that Duffy is presenting the realistic side of childbirth. However, we can see that Duffy does this to show the reader how the portrayal of childbirth does not make it any less valuable and through the suffering comes great love and joy, similar to that seen in Queen Herod. We could also infer that the Queen wishes she could have a normal life as “her ear tuned / to the light music of girls, the drums of women, the faint strings / of the old. Long Queen. All her possessions for a moment of time”. This suggests that the Queen wishes to be with them and part of their community desperately as they grow up, but she has an entirely different life so is unable to. “All her possessions for a moment of time” could be telling of how she gave everything she had for what is, in the end, a moment of time, and although we could infer she is an immortal Queen due to her long reign, this was only a small thing in life and she gave her all for it. Overall, in Queen Herod the reader is left to make a moral judgement about the actions of the Queen yet the Long Queen represents the rule of a female from a feminine aspect and the responsibility they take on, therefore being more positive about women.
Duffy also writes poems that show the callousness men have towards women and the idea that people are typified by their past. In Pygmalion’s Bride, Duffy once again portrays the man in the poem as an insensitive tyrant who is interested in only his own desires. Similarly, The Map Woman is also a powerful poem which shows how we are marked by our past and origins. Pygmalion’s Bride takes on the idea that giving the speaker a dramatic monologue creates a deeper meaning and has a greater significance in the idea of the patriarchal society. “I was, like snow, like ivory. / I thought “He will not touch me”, / but he did”. The narrator of the poem, Pygmalion’s Bride, expresses herself with a simile – “like snow”, that replicates her physique being carved out of ivory, which has connotations of solidity and beauty. Both ivory and snow are also cold to the touch and white, which could also signify her purity and innocence at the beginning of the poem. “He will not touch me” implies that “his” touch is uninvited but that this clearly doesn’t matter to the male in question as he is only concerned with his own desires. The use of the pronoun “his” also gives the reader a sense of ambiguity as to who this person is, which also creates a sense of mystery around both characters at this point. The language Duffy has used to introduce the poem is brief, allowing the narrative to signify the seriousness of the simple things that can affect a woman’s life. “He kissed my stone-cool lips. / I lay still / as though I’d died”. Her lips are “stone-cool” reminding the reader of her motionless state as she is still a statue, though ironically, she lay as if she had “died” despite her being lifeless at this point. The statue could be a metaphor for women’s passive power and how because she is unable to do anything, she uses her ability to be cold and unresponsive as a weapon against men. “He stayed. / He thumbed my marble eyes”. The concise, forceful short sentence implies the man’s tenacity and control which is emphasised by the caesura used. Her “marble eyes” can also be seen as a metaphor for her physical state and reluctance and the idea of “thumbing” eyes is quite brutal and animalistic, creating an unloving relationship between both the statue and the man, and the use of syntactic parallelism allows the narrator to move into the next stanza but also provides emphasis on the male central to the poem. Duffy incorporates the extended motif of the sea as Pygmalion attempts to seduce the statue with “presents, polished pebbles, /little bells” and also, later on, brings her “pearls and necklaces and rings.” The syndetic listing of the presents suggests boredom and the statement on them being “girly things” can be seen as quite condescending on the female and possibly represents Duffy’s own personal views on the idea that some men feel they can almost buy women by showering them with gifts. Towards the end of the poem, we see Pygmalion’s Bride become lively and avert her aggressor with Duffy using a colloquial short sentence to conclude this. “And haven’t seen him since. /Simple as that.” We can infer the end as quite successful and Duffy gives an understanding to what she thinks a male considers as love as Pygmalion’s Bride “begged for his child” and this dramatic climax seems to have intimidated and frightened him away as we infer Duffy is presenting the notion that men fear long-term commitment to a relationship or parenthood, exposing the selfishness of the male and celebrating the ingenuity and wit of the female. Equally, we see women in The Map Woman embodied by the past, which is made literal by Duffy: “A woman’s skin was the map of the town.” Here, the “skin” is a metaphor for the journey through life and the transitions people go through during childhood into adulthood, and we can see that the “map” is a map of the character’s life being explored. We see that similar to Pygmalion’s Bride, the poem provides a woman’s perspective on the world and her relationships: “when she went out, she covered it up/with a dress…and fingertip-sleeved” The listing used creates an impression that the woman is eager to conceal herself and her identity and does not want to be known or recognised by those around her, which reinforces Duffy’s idea about women being oppressed and not being able to establish an identity. Duffy’s use of listing is possibly the most important in establishing the identity of the woman as it is highly powerful in showing both her determination and anxiousness and is seen again in stanza seven: “She lived down south, abroad, en route…a delicate braille” This suggests that the woman wants to run away from her past and attempts to cover it up, yet we understand that this is impossible as identities can be hidden but not removed. Reigh says that “the poem itself has at its heart the failed aspirations of an individual to escape an oppressive environment which has permanently shaped her identity” From this, we can conclude that the female within the poem desires freedom from her domineering state to be able to reach her goals and achieve what she wants in life, yet she is unable to due to the patriarchal society in which she lives. Towards the end of the poem, we see that the map woman has left her identity and found another: “Her skin was her own small ghost, /a shroud to be dead in, a newspaper for old news/to be read in, gift-wrapping, litter, a suicide letter.” She has disposed of her old identity and is no longer defined by her past. This change is compared to dying and a “suicide letter”, as she has purposely removed herself from society in a way that means she can never be found by anyone, yet we see her “hunting for home”, suggesting that now she is embarking on her new journey, the memories will still impact on her daily life but she needs to find a new identity. Overall, both poems are equally powerful in showing how women are brave in the actions they decide to take against oppression.
Little Red Cap is the first poem in the collection The World’s Wife and presents the wolf as a dominant man with Little Red Cap emerging from childhood into adulthood, becoming more knowledgeable and sexually aware. The girl is portrayed at “childhoods end”, reflecting that this poem is about coming of age, but as Giovanelli says, “Duffy’s opening poem could be seen as the key to the collection as Duffy maps out her intentions for the rest of the poems”, which reinforces the foremost impression of Duffy’s poetry of women overpowering men, and could be used as the opening poem to this anthology because of its nature of childhood ending, as this book is about the matters and reflections of women in their adulthood, setting the scene for the following poems. Likewise, as the first poem in Feminine Gospels, The Long Queen reflects on every female and their individual experiences as well as collective ones, which parallel to Little Red Cap reflects on female adulthood and the experiences that come with it. Nevertheless, Demeter is the final poem in The World’s Wife and differs from the others in that it is purely poetic. There is no mockery or criticism of men, and the poem is, in essence, a celebration of relationships. This final poem shows how women are able to overcome the problems they may have. Equally, Death and the Moon is the final poem in Duffy’s collection Feminine Gospels, and many view this poem as an afterthought. It is possibly about the death of Duffy’s friend Adrian Henri, and her experience of loss and mourning, possibly showing how Duffy knows she will be unable to make that same connection again, which could reflect on the poem as an overall message for women to embrace the feelings they endure while they can. Both first poems present the problem of maturing into adulthood, with the last being a final message to the reader that anything is possible.
Overall, we see that Duffy forms a female outlook in the anthologies The World’s Wife and Feminine Gospels through the use of her language and we are able to understand that Duffy wants to illustrate female lives in poetry to portray the affections of the female gender, but also the problems they have in life, shown in their monologues. We can see that The World’s Wife is the most powerful in showing the power and determination women have, with Feminine Gospels being the most important in reflecting on this power and dedication women have that Duffy wants to excel in her poems.
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