The World’s Wife – Carol Ann Duffy
All the poems in this anthology are dramatic monologues, except ‘The Kray Sisters’, which is written in the composite voice of 2 women. Carol Ann Duffy invents none of the stories that form the basis of the poems. She has taken some well-known characters from myth and history, exploring aspects of their lives and personalities in ways that interrogate them in fresh, humorous and thought-provoking ways. The title of the collection clearly signals that the poems will be written from a female perspective, one that takes the saying ‘the world and his wife’ and reminds us that the world is not owned by men as the possessive pronoun ‘his’ suggests.
Many of the women in the poems were pursued by men or were icons of desire. Some of the men who fell in love with them were very powerful and handsome. The poems challenge the stereotypical views about women and their expected behaviour, often placing them in a position of power over men.
Through making individual women’s voices heard, the poet builds up what amounts to an orchestra of individual women’s voices that result in a collective female voice. These voices are often either forgotten or disregarded in a world that lionizes men but often marginalizes the women who live with them, are wives or lovers to them. Above all, the female voices emerge as intellectually capable and aware of their own potentials. Such potential can be wasted and this stifling is very much a tragedy in the strict sense that sacrifice is involved. The fatal flaw in men, their hubris is presented as something that affects women and not just themselves.
Themes
Duffy explores memory, its power to both uplift and destroy. As a means of reliving the past, memory is a vital human capacity. Duffy’s poems explore the effects of memory which can be both personal and collective. Of course, memory can be real or imagined. Some characters are doomed to relive the experiences in their memory, becoming physically atrophied, psychologically damaged and eternally damaged. In contrast, memory can function as a source of mental balm for the personas (wives)in the poems – the present being a bleak place which they want to escape.
Love, Relationships and Sexuality
Through the use of the dramatic monologue,the nature of love and relationships is presented in a multifaceted manner. Love is viewed from a variety of perspectives. The issue of sexuality is explored from both a gender-based point of view and one that addresses physical relationships. The intensity of love and passion felt for a lover is also present in some of the poems. Conversely, the destructive potentials of love, and the breakdown of relationships are also explored.
Language
Duffy’s use of language is much noted for its resistance of the studiously poetic. She writes in an immediately recognizable and accessible idiom. Her diction reflects that she is able to articulate what many ordinary people feel. She uses straightforward language in complex ways, eschewing the self-consciously poetic in favour of an idiom more suited to every-day speech.
Her lyrics articulate sentiment in a memorable way but are never sentimental. They have the authentic sound of the modern but are never in danger of being ephemeral. The way a society uses language is an index of its attitudes and identity. The plethora of insulting names that Mrs. Quasimodo lists, such as, ‘pig’, ‘stupid cow’, ‘fucking buffalo’ indicates how men have a seemingly inexhaustible supply of such terms for women. They, like the Quasimodo in the poem, cannot accept someone who does not live up to the ideal of a svelte gypsy girl or similar male-manufactured icon.
Time
The relationship between individuals and time is inescapable. Time can be malevolent, all-powerful, or an inexorable, depressing reminder of mortality.
Poetic Form
Duffy employs a wide variety of forms that include free verse, the sonnet, and the dramatic monologue.
The Dramatic Monologue
Using this style, Duffy aligns herself with Robert Browning whose Dramatis Personae, published in 1864, includes such famous poems as ‘Porphyria’s Lover’ and ‘My Last Duchess’. Browning said he tried to present “some character thinking aloud in a moment of stress or at some point of crisis: confiding to the reader, in his or her individual idiom, the conflicts of thought and emotion involved in this particular predicament.” (Margaret Willy, Browning: Men and Women, 1968, p. 7.)
In Duffy’s poetry, this writing technique is a unifying principle in a diversity of voices. The extensive use of myth also reminds us that as attempts to make sense of the world, the poems should be read as just that. This is emphasized by Duffy’s reworking or redefinition of myths. The power of the human voice has always been at the centre of protest and the monologues draw attention to the historical fact of male domination and female suppression. Realising the importance of giving women a voice she remembers crucial figures in the women’s movement.
Notes taken from York Notes Advanced ‘Carol Ann Duffy Selected Poems’