MORE REVISION

SALOME SOME HELPFUL NOTES:Salome is a biblical character and is one of five in the collection The World’s Wife. It is worth considering why Duffy has chosen these particular women from the Bible, particularly as you might be asked about the biblical versus the classical characters in the examination.

The poem starts off in what might be termed a rather ‘male’ style, in that the tone is that of someone boasting about waking up the morning after the night before with an unknown stranger in the bed beside them. Immediately Duffy signals that this is not a one-off occurrence (‘I’d done it before’) and this might be seen as an ironic twist on the idea of the one-night stand scenario – lots of one night stands for her but for the men it is literally a never to be repeated experience as they are now dead. The parenthesis reflects how unimportant the event is to Salome: ‘(and doubtless I’ll do it again, /sooner or later)’. There is an inevitability about what has happened which has resonances of the ‘I just can’t help myself’ comments of men who have one-night stands.

Despite its gruesome subject the poem is humorous – ‘woke up with a head on the pillow beside me’ – although a certain amount of knowledge of the story of ‘Salome’ is required by the reader to recognise the black humour in the line, otherwise we might not realise the head is detached from the body!

The poem reveals a woman in control, as with many of the other poems in the collection. There is no doubt that Salome would go to bed with a handsome man – ‘Good looking, of course’ – and again the detailed description of his physical appearance mirrors the way in which some men might discuss a one-night stand. There is no emotion here, only the confirmation that she can ‘have’ whoever she wants.

It is only at the end of the poem that Salome makes reference to the severed head and we might get the impression that she has forgotten what happened, as if she is awakening from a drunken sleep; in the first stanza she certainly does not seem to realise why the man is so cold:

‘Colder than pewter.Strange.’

‘Salome’: from the New Testament, the book of Matthew, chapter 14. Salome danced for Herod on his birthday and he was so pleased by her performance that he promised to give her whatever she wished for. She was prompted by her mother, Herodias, and asked for the head of John the Baptist, on a plate. John the Baptist had been preaching about the coming of Jesus and had baptised Jesus (Matthew, chapter 3).

Many writers have re-told the story of ‘Salome’, including Oscar Wilde, in a play originally written in French.

In the second stanza the rather frugal meal Salome wishes for – ‘I knew I’d feel better / for tea, dry toast, no butter’ – contrasts vividly with the gory over-indulgence of her fantasies, which she has carried out for real.

The structure of the poem mimics a person gradually coming to full consciousness from a deep sleep: the first stanza is free verse, with long lines, questions and use of ellipsis, suggesting almost a stream of consciousness.

In the second stanza, there are much shorter lines and an up-tempo rhythm, which reflect her coming awake and recognising what will make her feel better. The half rhymes of butter/better and clatter/clutter, gradually change to full rhymes of clatter/patter/batter mirroring her growing wakefulness and then the final line of the stanza is like the recollection of a person who realises they are badly hungover and lead in to the resolution of the third stanza:

‘hungover and wrecked as I was from a night on the batter./ Never again!’

Salome’s attitude to the man is clearly shown in the three words she uses to describe him in the third stanza, ‘the blighter, / the beater or biter,’ and it is worth considering why Duffy has chosen these – to blight, to beat, to bite: what do they imply? Salome also says it was time to ‘turf him out’, so there will be no gentle wakening or swapping of phone numbers to meet up again. Duffy clearly shows that Salome has no emotional attachment to him.

It is only in the last stanza that there is any hint that Salome might have done something wrong: ‘I saw my eyes glitter.’ But does this imply wickedness or merely mischievousness?

Think about the irony of the phrase ‘and ain’t life a bitch’: the man is not alive and bitch always refers to the female, thus Salome is confirming that yes, life is female and women are central; men are peripheral and dead.

The end of the poem sounds like gossip, the punch line of a joke or boasting to friends:

‘and there, like I said – and ain’t life a bitch –was his head on a platter.’

There is no emotion in these lines, except perhaps a triumphant note? There is no mention of the man being decapitated and the poem finishes just as the truth is revealed; does this impact on our opinions of Salome, as Duffy has portrayed her?

Helpful hints for the study of ‘from Mrs Tiresias’

The title of this poem suggests it is an extract from a much longer piece of work. According to some sources Duffy added the ‘from’ as a tongue-in-cheek gesture after she was patronisingly told by an academic that there is a lot more to the myth than she has mentioned in the poem.

This is one of the poems in the collection that tells part of a story and therefore we might refer to it as a narrative poem (other classic examples include ‘The Pied Piper of Hamelin’, ‘The Highwayman’ and ‘The Lady of Shalott’) although unusually, here the narrator is one of the characters.

In the first stanza the ‘maleness’ (rather than masculinity) of Tiresias is undoubted, which Duffy emphasises with ‘he went out for his walk a man’ and the lack of any personal pronouns in ‘and came back female’ shows the reader how shocking the transformation is and how uncomfortable Tiresias feels.

In a similar way to ‘Mrs Midas’ the speaker gives the impression of contented domesticity in the second stanza: a couple at ease and doing everyday, ordinary activities. Tiresias goes ‘Out the back gate’ with ‘the dog’. He is ‘wearing his gardening kecks, / an open-necked shirt, / and a jacket in Harris tweed I’d patched at the elbows myself’.

The first hint of discord is reflected in the one word stanza, ‘Whistling’. Although it might reveal someone of a cheery demeanour it is often an unpleasant noise for the hearer and can hint at smugness or self-satisfaction. This lack of harmony between the couple is further illustrated in stanza four when Mrs Tiresias tells the reader about Tiresias writing to The Times after hearing the first cuckoo. In itself, the action might imply somebody who is arrogant, pompous and has too much time on their hands and it seems even more absurd when Mrs Tiresias confides to the reader that she had usually heard it ‘days before him’.

Story of Tiresias:

Tiresias was out on a walk, when he saw two snakes mating. He watched for a while until the snakes sensed his presence. They did not want to be disturbed so they attacked him. Tiresias managed to kill the female but simultaneously as he killed her he turned into a woman. As a woman Tiresias apparently became a prostitute. Then one day the episode with the snake was repeated, but this time Tiresias killed the male, and turned back into a man.

When Zeus and Hera had a disagreement about which sex enjoys the most pleasure during intercourse they asked Tiresias, since he had experienced both. Hera insisted men enjoy sex more, while Zeus claimed the opposite. Tiresias claimed that if sexual pleasure could be put on a scale from one to ten, men were at one, and women at three times three. Hera was so enraged to hear this that she blinded Tiresias, but Zeus gave him inner sight: wisdom and the ability to see the future.

Duffy personifies the thunder when it gives a ‘faint sneer’ and this foretells the ‘curse’ that has afflicted Tiresias, in more than one way: it is literally a curse that has been placed on him and later he wails about ‘the curse’, which is another word for menstruation.

Again, the poem has echoes of ‘Mrs Midas’ as Mrs Tiresias gradually becomes aware of what has happened, ‘when a face / swam into view’.

Mrs Tiresias gives the impression that, despite her shock, she recovers herself quickly which Duffy shows through one stanza finishing with Mrs Tiresias ‘passed out’ and the next beginning with ‘Life has to go on.’

We must remember that the character of ‘Mrs Tiresias’ is recalling all these events at a later date so, in a sense, she is an unreliable narrator: she is conveying her opinions of Tiresias and the situation after she has been cast aside.

There is a sense, in the next few stanzas that, despite her shame, Mrs Tiresias makes an effort to be supportive to her husband. The reason for his change of gender is not reported to the reader and we might infer many things from this: Mrs Tiresias has not been told? She is too ashamed? It is insignificant to the story?

The contrast of the stanza that ends, ‘sisterly, holding his soft new shape in my arms all night’ and the next one-line stanza, ‘Then he started his period’, signals to the reader the change in feeling that Mrs Tiresias has for her husband: an overtly hostile note creeps in to the poem emphasised by the ascending numbers in the next stanza which reflect Tiresias’s ever increasing needs.

The words used to describe Tiresias and his actions in the following stanzas reveal Mrs Tiresias’s rising anger and bitterness: ‘demanding’, ‘selfish pale face’, ‘snapped’ and ‘It got worse’.

There are hints of Tiresias’s prostitution in lines such as ‘out and about’, ‘glitzy restaurants’ and ‘on the arms of powerful men’. Duffy might not be imagining that Tiresias literally became a call-girl but that he metaphorically prostituted himself: in other words he played up to the stereotype of how women behave and look.

As with many of the other poems in the collection Duffy has grafted modern ideas, theories, behaviour, language and goods on to legendary characters. Here, Tiresias appears to frequent chat shows, sharing his/her feelings: of course the irony is that when Tiresias is ‘telling the women out there / how, as a woman himself, / he knew how we felt’ he actually has no idea. The statement also has echoes of patronising celebrities and wealthy stars who claim to have an understanding of how ordinary women feel about and cope with domestic life.

Again, there are hints of Mrs Tiresias’s bitterness in such lines as, ‘His flirt’s smile’ and ‘A cling peach slithering out from its tin. / I gritted my teeth.’ The two harsh ‘i’ sounds reflect the harshness and slightly grating sound that Tiresias’s voice has. The ‘tinned peach’ image hints at

something unbearably sweet, manufactured and quite unlike the real thing.

In the last stanza the confusion felt by the reader over who the ‘he’ and the ‘her’ are possibly reflects the bewilderment and awkwardness that Mrs Tiresias and Tiresias feel at this meeting. Again, the artificial nature of items ‘glittering’ and ‘tinkling’ suggest the unease and discord between them. The repetition of ‘her bite’ in the stanza seems intended to taunt Tiresias: Mrs Tiresias is, and always has been, a lesbian (?) unfulfilled by her husband and now extremely aware of and eloquent about the sensuous nature of a loving relationship.

The word ‘clash’ in the final line seems to have a double meaning: the literal jarring and noise of Tiresias’s and the lover’s bejewelled hands meeting but also the animosity that they feel towards one another.

Some study notes on ‘Mrs Faust’

This is a poem all about the desire for material wealth, ambition and pursuit of power. Once again Duffy has updated a very old story and given the characters modern language and imagery to convey her ideas about them and she is illustrating that although most people don’t sell their soul to the devil, many men are corrupted by power. You can probably think of characters who fit this picture: Bill Clinton, Nick Leeson and Jeffrey Archer are just a few who might perhaps make it into this category.

The pace of the poem reflects the pace of the couple’s lifestyle. It reads like a list of mostly material goods and achievements, slightly abbreviated, like a brief business telephone call. The list is very similar to lots of items that people desire in life and that give them status: many of them are status symbols, such as ‘fast cars’, ‘a boat with sails’ and ‘a second home in Wales’.

As with many of the other poems in the collection Duffy has presented us with a character who appears to tell us everything

Summary of character:

Christopher Marlowe’s Dr Faustus, finished by 1616, tells the story of a man who, in order to enjoy wealth and power, makes a pact with the devil that he can enjoy all of these things for twenty-four years but must surrender his soul to the devil at the end of this time.

There is also a version by Goethe, written in 1832, and both of these stories are based on much earlier tellings of the story, which vary what happens to Faust at the end. In Marlowe’s version, a group of scholars discover Faustus’ limbs the morning after a host of devils carry him away to hell.

about their relationship and through this we recognise what is missing: there is no mention of love between the couple.

The morality of Faust gradually degenerates as he is able to achieve whatever he decides on and he moves into coveting things that affect other people, such as ‘MP’, ‘Cardinal’ and even ‘Pope’. It is ironic that Faust takes on the role of the head of the Catholic church, a position very close to God and one that invites the confidences of others, when he is simultaneously in a relationship with the Devil. He then buys into objects that directly and negatively affect the lives of others: ‘invested in smart bombs’, ‘cloned sheep’ and even ‘surfed the Internet / for like-minded Bo-Peep.’ This last in particular shows a shift downwards to things that are unacceptable and taboo to society: the bombs and sheep are possibly alright to discuss with others but surfing the internet for innocent young girls, implied by the Bo-Peep image, is not.

Duffy is not condoning the behaviour or actions of Mrs Faust, who admits, ‘I grew to love the lifestyle’ and does not feel ‘jealousy’ and ‘went my own sweet way’. Mrs Faust’s activities are all to do with appearance and her body, such as ‘colonic irrigation’, ‘had a facelift, / had my breasts enlarged, / my buttocks tightened’. In one stanza Duffy appears to mock the actions of women who talk about ‘finding themselves’ and seem to adopt a frugal lifestyle but actually achieve nothing and are still in a privileged position. Mrs Faust becomes ‘teetotal, vegan, / Buddhist, 41’ but at the end of the stanza after changing her hair colour and running away, merely ‘went home’.

There are hints in the poem of Mrs Faust’s loneliness, expressed through phrases such as, ‘I grew to love the lifestyle, / not the life.’ and the fact that Mrs Faust goes ‘her own sweet way’ and apparently alone.

Look at the lack of regret Faust has for what he has done. Duffy’s diction shows he is unconcerned and unrepentant. The persona of Faust talks about ‘gagging for it’ and ‘going for it’. There is no apology and no remorse in the language.

The humour of the poem is in the attention to detail Duffy provides. For example when Faust is dragged down to hell the devil pokes his hands up ‘through the terracotta Tuscan tiles.’ Even at this moment of judgement Mrs Faust is keen for the reader to know that the kitchen tiles are the ‘right’ colour and style.

The last stanza exposes Mrs Faust’s own shockingly immoral behaviour. Her response to Faust’s doom is ‘C’est la vie’, a phrase similar to a shrugging of the shoulders in response to a minor problem. She buys a kidney ‘with my credit card’, hinting to the reader the shockingly gruesome origins of her donated organ.

At the end of the poem the irony of the situation is explicitly revealed. Faust has even tricked the devil because he ‘didn’t have a soul to sell’. He is the ultimate salesman who has clinched the ultimate deal. Mrs Faust’s opinion of her husband is also made overtly obvious as her final words about him are that he is a ‘clever, cunning, callous bastard’: hardly words of love.

Some notes on ‘Queen Herod’

This is a poem about love, relationships and children. It is about maternal love, marital love and even lesbian love. It is one of the most difficult poems within the collection The World’s Wife and therefore you need to study and revise it carefully.

Just because the poem uses the wife of Herod as narrator and appears to have references to Jesus being a ‘hunk’ and a ‘paramour’, it does not mean that the poem is blasphemous: if you are reading it in this way then you are probably only reading it on a very superficial level. Try to avoid criticising Duffy for her choice of material as you won’t get many marks for an answer like that; instead aim to explore some of the incredible issues Duffy raises through ‘Queen Herod’. Why for example has Duffy made the ‘villain’ female? In many of the other poems in the collection the female partner of the famous male looks on with disgust, condescension, fear or even amusement at what the man is doing – why has Duffy made Queen Herod the one who demands the murder of all baby boys?

The way Duffy uses language is incredibly clever and complex and she has woven many stories into this one poem – in a way that is similar to the Bible and the many different ways it has been interpreted.

One of her many sources might well be T.S. Eliot’s ‘The Journey of the Magi’, which you really need to look at in order to appreciate Duffy’s poem fully. Eliot’s poem tells the story of the journey of the three wise men and the opening of Duffy’s poem, in particular, has echoes of Eliot’s earlier work:

Eliot: ‘“A cold coming we had of it”’Duffy: ‘Ice in the trees’

Eliot: ‘And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory’Duffy: ‘their several sweating, panting beasts’

Both poems end with dual messages: Duffy’s might be expected to end this way with Queen Herod recognising the horror of what she has demanded. The juxtaposition of the peaceful images of the female baby/babies – ‘sleeping girls’ and ‘lullabies’ – with that of the forthcoming violence – ‘We wade through blood’, ‘daggers for eyes’ and ‘the hooves of terrible horses / thunder and drum’.

Who was Herod? Of course, he is the king who, according to the Bible (Matthew, Chapter 2), was so concerned at the news the three wise men brought him about the birth of Jesus Christ, that he demanded the execution of every male child under two. In the Bible, when the three wise men visit Herod and tell him the news about the birth, the only hint we have about Herod’s disquiet is the statement that Herod was ‘troubled’ by the news.

The Eliot poem is similarly, and perhaps surprisingly, ominous in its tone:

‘We returned to our places, these Kingdoms, / But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation, / With an alien people clutching their gods. / I should be glad of another death.’

There is no need for us to do an in-depth analysis of Eliot’s poem but it is worth considering what or which death the voice refers to and in what tone. Is it the death of his religion (because the Saviour is born?) or his own death (because of his betrayal) or the deaths of all the baby boys? And how should we interpret ‘should’? Is it ‘I should be glad but I’m not’ or ‘I will be glad of another death’?

There are a few end-rhymes in Duffy’s poem (be/me/three) and you need to think about why she has chosen to do this at the point in the poem where Queen Herod is alone with the three queens.

Look at the way Herod is described (‘drunken’ and ‘fusty bulk’) and Queen Herod’s opinion of marriage (her own): she is ‘splayed’ beneath Herod – it doesn’t exactly sound like she is enjoying sex or even has any choice in it – and the possible marriage of her daughter: ‘some wincing Prince to take her name away / and give a ring, a nothing, nowt in gold.’

What about other meanings of the word ‘Queen’? Are the three people who arrive royalty or is Duffy hinting at lesbian love? The voice in the poem does tell us that one of them looks at her ‘Queen to Queen, with insolent lust’. It might just be female friendship that Duffy is referring to, which can be incredibly close, particularly just after women have had children.

How many voices are there in the poem and where does each speaker begin and end?

Is it really Jesus that is being referred to when the narrator recalls the conversation about ‘The Husband. Hero. Hunk.’? Or is it any boy and is Duffy just using the story of the birth of Jesus to draw parallels between what society considers the ultimate achievement for boys (e.g. you can be anybody you want to be, literally, you can be amazingly powerful – look at Jesus) and what it considers the ultimate achievement for girls (e.g. you can find a boyfriend, fall in love, get married)?

There are lots of ideas not included in these notes but these are a starting point for you to further explore the poem.

‘Pilate’s Wife’

This is one of the five poems in The World’s Wife about biblical characters. The others are ‘Queen Herod’, ‘Salome’, ‘Delilah’ and ‘Mrs Lazarus’. As with the other poems, you need to consider why Duffy has chosen to tell this woman’s story and why she tells it in the way she does.

A lot of the imagery in this poem is to do with hands, emphasising the metaphor of ‘washing your hands’ of a problem. Duffy uses the softness of a woman’s hands as an insult: it gives the impression that Pilate does not do any work. She uses long vowel sounds in the description of Pilate’s hands, to emphasise his languid and lethargic nature: ‘pearly nails’, ‘shells from Galilee’, ‘Indolent’, ‘Camp’, ‘clapped’, ‘pale, mouthy touch’. The reference to moths reflects Pilate’s indecision: moths hover and flit about but they never actually land on the object of their attentions. The one word sentence at the end of the first stanza highlights the speaker’s contempt for Pilate, ‘Pontius.’ It is a short, abrupt sound after the long vowels of the previous words and might even be mistaken for the word ‘ponce’.

The subterfuge and excitement of going to visit Jesus is shown through Duffy’s verb choices. The speaker ‘crept out’, was ‘disguised’. In her haste and anxiety she ‘tripped’ and ‘clutched’. The use of enjambement at the end of the second stanza, leading in to the third reveals how quickly and in what a confused way Pilate’s wife meets Jesus: she merely ‘looked up / and there he was.’ There is no pre-meditation about the event; it just happens.

Pontius Pilate was the Roman governor of Judea from AD 26 to 36. The Jews who wanted Jesus killed took him to Pilate and although Pilate did not find Jesus guilty of any crime he allowed him to be crucified. It is said that he asked the people if they wanted him to free Jesus but they cried out for Barabbas instead, a murderer. Thus, because he was afraid of the people, Pilate let them decide Jesus’ fate, and effectively ‘washed his hands’ of the problem.

Pilate’s wife’s adoration and lust are illustrated through her reaction to Jesus’ eyes: ‘He looked at me. I mean he looked at me. My God.’ Of course the last sentence has a double meaning: the shock of seeing him makes her blaspheme but it can also be interpreted as her acknowledgement that Jesus is her god. Duffy has quite possibly emphasised the beauty of Jesus’ eyes because in pictures he is often portrayed as having extremely piercing blue eyes, with an arresting stare.

When Pilate’s wife dreams of Jesus Duffy conveys the contrast between his hands and Pilate’s; Jesus’ hands are ‘brown’ and he has ‘tough’ palms. She describes him as having worker’s hands: suntanned and hardened through labour. Remember as well that Jesus is often described as performing miracles on people by laying his hands upon them: he does something useful with his hands, unlike Pilate.

In the penultimate stanza the people are again referred to as the crowd. In the second stanza they were ‘frenzied’ because of Jesus’ presence, now they are ‘baying’ for Barabbas. They are portrayed as the same set of people, swayed by popular feeling and merely there because everyone else is. The hysteria of the crowd is juxtaposed with the methodical movements of Pilate, who ‘carefully turned up his sleeves / and slowly washed his useless, perfumed hands.’

In the last stanza, ‘My maid knows all the rest’ suggests that Pilate’s wife could not bear to witness what the crowd did to Jesus. The violence that prefixes the line hints at what is to follow: they ‘seized’ him and ‘dragged him out’. The last line also has an ironic double meaning. Pilate’s wife is adamant that Jesus is not God and when she says ‘Pilate believed he was’ it can be interpreted either that Pilate thought Jesus was God or that Pilate thought he himself was God: either way Pilate is condemned by the line.

As with many of the other poems in the collection the horror of this one comes from the controlled line and stanza length and cadence of the poem which suggests someone reflecting on events with emotional detachment. Pilate is portrayed as amoral and unresponsive but at the end of the poem, despite her bouts of passion, we are left feeling that Pilate’s wife is perhaps very similar.The Eliot poem is similarly, and perhaps surprisingly, ominous in its tone:

‘We returned to our places, these Kingdoms, / But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation, / With an alien people clutching their gods. / I should be glad of another death.’

There is no need for us to do an in-depth analysis of Eliot’s poem but it is worth considering what or which death the voice refers to and in what tone. Is it the death of his religion (because the Saviour is born?) or his own death (because of his betrayal) or the deaths of all the baby boys? And how should we interpret ‘should’? Is it ‘I should be glad but I’m not’ or ‘I will be glad of another death’?

There are a few end-rhymes in Duffy’s poem (be/me/three) and you need to think about why she has chosen to do this at the point in the poem where Queen Herod is alone with the three queens.

Look at the way Herod is described (‘drunken’ and ‘fusty bulk’) and Queen Herod’s opinion of marriage (her own): she is ‘splayed’ beneath Herod – it doesn’t exactly sound like she is enjoying sex or even has any choice in it – and the possible marriage of her daughter: ‘some wincing Prince to take her name away / and give a ring, a nothing, nowt in gold.’

What about other meanings of the word ‘Queen’? Are the three people who arrive royalty or is Duffy hinting at lesbian love? The voice in the poem does tell us that one of them looks at her ‘Queen to Queen, with insolent lust’. It might just be female friendship that Duffy is referring to, which can be incredibly close, particularly just after women have had children.

How many voices are there in the poem and where does each speaker begin and end?

Is it really Jesus that is being referred to when the narrator recalls the conversation about ‘The Husband. Hero. Hunk.’? Or is it any boy and is Duffy just using the story of the birth of Jesus to draw parallels between what society considers the ultimate achievement for boys (e.g. you can be anybody you want to be, literally, you can be amazingly powerful – look at Jesus) and what it considers the ultimate achievement for girls (e.g. you can find a boyfriend, fall in love, get married)?

There are lots of ideas not included in these notes but these are a starting point for you to further explore the poem.

‘The Kray Sisters’

This is the only poem in the collection The World’s Wife that is not a dramatic monologue. It is also one of only three poems based on real characters from the twentieth century; the other two being ‘Elvis’s Twin Sister’ and ‘The Devil’s Wife’.

The real Kray twins were brothers (Ronnie and Reggie): famous villains around the East End of London in the 1950s and 60s. They ran protection rackets and had money in various clubs. They were eventually imprisoned for the murder of Jack the Hat in 1969 after evading police for years, and it was recommended that they serve a minimum of 30 years in prison. Ronnie died in prison in 1996 and Reggie died a few weeks after his release in 2000.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/crime/caseclosed/thekrays.shtml

Firstly, make sure you know the translations of the Cockney rhyming slang used in the poem:

Frog and toad

Savile Row whistle and flutes

Thr’penny bits

mince pies

God forbids

Orchestra stalls

Butcher’s

Remember, this poem is supposed to be funny and it is one of two from the collection (the other being ‘Elvis’s Twin Sister’) that largely rely on the aural impact to derive the humour: in other words, you need to attempt to read it out loud in a Cockney accent (although obviously not in the exam hall).

The characters in the poem are very boastful and the twins exude an air of confidence, which comes from their bullying and violent behaviour.

The poem opens with a declarative statement: ‘There go the twins!’ There is a cheerfulness implied here but the ‘geezers’ are probably actually fearful of the twins, not pleased to see them as they imagine and the line can be interpreted either way.

The repetition of ‘London’ in ‘Oh, London, London,/London Town’ is reminiscent of patriotic, loyal and rousing songs often associated with the Second World War and its aftermath, such as ‘Knees Up Mother Brown’, ‘Maybe it’s because I’m a Londoner’ and ‘My Old Man’. They hint at a feeling of community spirit and unity which probably did not really exist but people like to imagine.

There are lots of internal rhymes in the poem, very much mimicking the rhythm, lilt and cadence of the East London dialect.

The poem includes boastful reminiscences which verge on hyperbole: the grandmother, for example, knocking out the horse’ ‘with one punch’. The mention of the grandmother and family life is supposed to show us that the family is strong and united: in other words, a ‘proper’ family: respectful and respected. Of course it is ironic that the twins convey this image and yet they are extremely violent, unreliable and bullying to others.

The twins are very masculine in their language and style: ‘We wanted respect for the way / we entered a bar, or handled a car, or shrivelled/ a hard-on with simply a menacing look’

The twins romanticise the past, ‘holding the hand of the past’ and ‘there we for ever are in glamorous black and white’; similar to the way people now (and tabloid newspapers in particular) do – people apparently yearn for the ‘good old days’ of the Krays and the Blitz as the twins in this poem do.

It is an ironic contradiction that the twins behave in quite a chauvinistic way, ‘enrolled a few girls/in the firm who were well out of order’ and criticise them for fulfilling such roles as being, ‘some plonker’s wife’ and yet they are perceived as being protective of women, ‘The word got around and about/that any woman in trouble could come to the Krays, / no questions asked, for Protection.’ Again the line can be interpreted in two ways, in that ‘protection’ might be capitalised because of its importance or alternatively it is capitalised because it is a proper noun: protection is another name for running an extortion racket.

These are very powerful women and yet, simultaneously, they belittle other females and are condescending to them, referring to them as ‘girls’ and lecturing to them, ‘A boyfriend’s for Christmas, not just for life.’ The line also patronises men: Duffy takes the phrase, ‘A dog is for life, not just for Christmas’ and puts the male in the place of the soppy-eyed puppy dog.

There is use of alliteration to show the twins’ success: ‘the fruits / of feminisim – fact – made us rich, feared, famous, / friends of the stars.’ The lines mirror a public speech, such as an acceptance speech at an awards ceremony, in that it builds to a climax, each word or phrase that follows the last reveals increasing power: note that ‘feminism’ is the first and therefore the least important to the twins.

The voices reveal that celebrity is more important to them than the supposed effect they have on the security of London. Look at the way the list of female celebrities comes first and then the line about the Capital, almost as an aside or a throwaway remark: ‘And London was safer then / on account of us.’

The extract from the letter that appears is supposed to reflect popular feeling and certainly the real Kray twins are often remembered in this way, with the memory that London had been safer ‘in the old days’. The statements are still said a lot today: just look at some of the election slogans and declarations that have been used and the way in which politicians keep telling us they will return Britain to the state it used to be in. What Duffy is doing here is reminding us that ‘the old days’ were not better and were often much worse: her references to the twins in

photographs reflect the fact that before the mass audience for television, people were sometimes unaware of current affairs and events beyond their own streets or towns so it was not that there was less crime, it was just that not so many people knew about it.

In the last stanza the poem has built to an almost frenzied crescendo of power, which mirrors the behaviour of the real twins, in that they felt themselves almost invincible. The phrase ‘dressed to kill’ has an ominous double meaning in that the twins are literally well dressed and yet they really are dressed ready to kill anyone who offends them.

The extract from the song at the end of the poem is indeed by Sinatra, but it is Frank Sinatra’s daughter, Nancy. The song itself hints at a power within women that might remain dormant for many years, but once roused can not be ignored. The full song lyrics become darker as the song progresses which is possibly why Duffy has left the ellipsis at the end of the poem, hinting at the sinister events which were to end the Kray twins’ rule over East London.

‘Thetis’

As with many of the classical Greek myths, this one has a number of variations but the summary included here should be enough for our purposes. ‘Thetis’ is one of ten in The World’s Wife from Greek mythology, and is one of six from this group in which a female features strongly in the original story.

The poem is about a woman growing more powerful with every stanza but thwarted by a man’s intentions (and attentions) until the moment she has a baby, at the end of the poem. There are similarities in the poem to ‘Pope Joan’ in which the woman becomes all-powerful through the experience of giving birth (and many women do say birth is empowering and liberating). Think about other poems in the collection, such as ‘Demeter’ and ‘Queen Herod’ in which children feature and decide whether you could use them as comparative poems.

Each animal Thetis becomes is more powerful than the last: a small bird; an albatross; snake; lion; mermaid and other sea creatures, including a whale; and then finally to animals that are well-known for their cunning and ability to survive despite being hunted.

In the first five stanzas the rhythm of the first two lines is similar if not exactly identical, but this breaks down when Thetis declares, ‘I changed my tune / to racoon,

Thetis was originally wooed by two Gods (Zeus and Poseidon) but was rejected by both when they learnt that Themis had prophesised that she was to father a child who would become mightier than the father.

It was a mortal, Peleus, who eventually married Thetis and he had done so by capturing her as she changed shape and form (just as she does in the poem).

Thetis’s baby was Achilles and she made him immortal by dipping him into the River Styx (although again some versions say she dipped him in fire) but because she held on to his foot to do so, his heel remained unprotected: thus the saying that a person’s vulnerability is their ‘Achille’s heel’.

skunk, stoat’ and this mirrors her change to what are usually considered unpleasant animals, as if she is no longer trying to please anyone but herself.

There is use of assonance throughout the poem and you need to think about why Duffy has included this. There are half rhymes and near rhymes and a few full rhymes, which all serve a purpose and which you must consider.

In the penultimate stanza Thetis becomes, ‘wind, I was gas, / I was all hot air,’ She has become intangible, ethereal: she can not be grasped or held.

Duffy has followed a fairly traditional view here, in which the female is seen as nature, part of the natural order, with an innate desire to replenish and restore; to continue life through giving birth, whereas the male is seen as a destructive force,

Some of the items the man uses to capture Thetis are personified, such as the ‘squint of the crossbow’s eye’. Why has Duffy done this? Perhaps to show the increasing power and violence of the man and his weapons: they become part of his army, prepared to stand with him to defeat Thetis.

Duffy explores the ability and often the necessity that women feel to alter themselves for a man, ‘So I shopped for a suitable shape’ whilst also mocking men’s perception that women enjoy the experience of shopping. You might disagree with this view and feel that she is mocking some women because of their desire to always look ‘right’ and that she is also criticising women’s materialism.

Thetis is initially subservient to the man, ‘I shrank myself’ and then ‘shouldered the cross of an albatross’. It is only later in the poem after, ‘I sank through the floor of the earth’ that she appears to become powerful and this moment can almost be seen as a moment of re-birth, particularly with its connotations of baptism.

In the fifth stanza, the voice of Thetis refers to, ‘his hook and his line and his sinker’ which has the double meaning of the man’s attempts to catch her (and it is a violent capture) and also a reference to love, in that people refer to being caught ‘hook, line and sinker’. Duffy has perhaps meant this to have an ironic double meaning in that, for women, relationships are sometimes destructive.

In the sixth stanza the animals Thetis metamorphoses into have negative connotations, ‘racoon, skunk, stoat, / to weasel, ferret, bat, mink, rat.’ They are often considered disease-ridden, smelly, sly and even evil.

In the last stanza Thetis has obviously been married as she refers to a ‘groom’ but he is insignificant in the moment of giving birth. Although the rest of the poem has not had the rhythm of labour, like ‘Pope Joan’ the poem could be interpreted as another birth poem in that women often describe a feeling of increasing power during labour, from feeling out of control and afraid to taking control of the situation and their bodies. Certainly the last stanza of this poem gives the impression of a woman in the last moments of labour before giving birth, when the whole body can feel as if it is on fire with the effort and energy of labour, particularly with the reference to her being, ‘turned inside out’.

At the close of the poem the focus has shifted away from Thetis and her attempts to evade the man, to the baby because the poem finishes with, ‘when the child burst out’. It seems like a new beginning, which having children is, in that your old life and your needs and desires become secondary to that of the infant. Throughout the rest of the poem Duffy has used ‘I’ seventeen times but in the last stanza Thetis announces, ‘So I changed, I learned’ and immediately the ‘I’, or sense of Thetis disappears as the child is born.

What do you think about this poem? Is it happy, sad, bitter, triumphant, celebratory?What is your reaction to it? What other poems from the collection might you compare it to? What is the poem about: love; relationships; childbirth; power?

Essay titles

Have a go at doing a few of these, remembering to spend no more than one hour on each one. Do a plan before your essay and hand that in as well.

Helpful hints: refer to Duffy in your answer as she controls the characters. Use your choice of poems throughout your answer: do not write about one poem and then another. Remember to answer the question: do not just write down everything you know about the poems. Use poetic terms to enhance your answer, not as the main focus.

1. “The World’s Wife is a celebration of women and their achievements.” To what extent do you agree with this assessment? In your answer you should either refer to two or three poems in or range more widely through the collection.

2. “‘Mrs Sisyphus’ is a typical representation of the poems in The World’s Wife.” Discuss this statement and consider whether or not you agree with it.

3. “‘Pope Joan’ is the odd one out in Duffy’s The World’s Wife.” Explore this idea, considering whether or not you agree with the assessment.

4. “‘Queen Kong’ is, like all the poems in the collection, a humorous take on a well-known story.” Discuss this statement, using two or three poems to draw your conclusions.

5. How has Duffy used children’s fairytales and/or modern ‘myths’ in order to comment on the nature of relationships between men and women?

6. “In using biblical stories in her collection Duffy merely offers the reader a different perspective on a patriarchal world.” Explore this statement, using either two or three poems in detail in your answer or ranging more widely through the collection.

7. “The poems in The World’s Wife reflect Duffy’s own, very feminist, view of the world.” Explore this statement, using either two or three poems in detail or ranging more widely through the collection.

8. “Duffy’s poems are more successful when she uses characters that are more familiar to a 21st century audience, such as ‘The Devil’s Wife’ and ‘The Kray Twins’.” Explore this opinion, using at least two other poems to draw your conclusions.

9. “Although many of the poems in The World’s Wife are humorous, they all have a serious underlying message to convey.” Explore this statement, using either two or three poems in detail or ranging more widely through the collection.

10. “The World’s Wife only appeals to a female audience because of the negative portrayal of men.” Explore this statement, using either two or three poems in detail or ranging more widely through the collection.

11. “As with many of the poems in The World’s Wife, ‘Mrs Rip Van Winkle’ has extremely dark undertones and is not meant to be only funny.” Explore this statement, using two or three other poems to compare with this one.

12. “The poems about fairytale characters are all funny, but the religious ones are not.” Discuss this statement and give your own opinion, using at least four of the poems in your answer.

13. “The World’s Wife is all about relationships.” Explore this statement, using either two or three poems in detail or ranging more widely through the collection.

14. “There is not a single positive portrayal of a man in all the poems in the collection.” Explore this statement, using either two or three poems in detail or ranging more widely through the collection.

15. “The classical characters are either bitter or smug.” Explore this statement, using either two or three poems in detail or ranging more widely through the collection.

16. “There is nothing funny about middle-aged women moaning about their lot in life.” Explore this opinion of The World’s Wife, using either two or three poems in detail or ranging more widely through the collection.

17. “‘Demeter’ is a haunting tale of grief which is unique in its topic and style in the collection.” Explore this statement, using at least two or three other poems to compare with this one.

18. “A reader needs to know the stories behind poems such as ‘Mrs Faust’ otherwise they do not have much meaning.” Explore this opinion, using either two or three other poems in detail or ranging more widely through the collection.

Top ten features

1. Read the list of features below and add an extra point of your own choice if you like.

2. Rank order the features from one to ten, starting with the one that best characterises the collection for you as a reader.

3. For your top feature, find evidence from two poems to support and explain your choice and evidence from a poem that challenges it.

4. Justify your choice to the rest of the group, making use of the evidence you have found.

Duffy’s poems in The World’s Wife:

are about power relationships

lament the inadequacies of men

focus on the presentation of sexual attraction

explore the satisfactions and burdens of motherhood

are about disappointment

present women creating their own lives

are at heart optimistic

present women’s search for independence

show that the treatment of women has not changed over time

document women’s lives today

……………………………….

Feature Evidence from three poems

1.

2.

3.

Essay writing: Now turn your first choice feature into an essay title by adding the following: ‘How far do you agree with this view?’ In your answer you should refer to three poems in detail or range more widely through the whole collection.

Use the evidence you have noted in the table above as the basis for a more detailed essay plan before you start writing. Remember to include a poem which helps you offer an alternative point of view so that you address the ‘how far…’ part of the question in your answer.