Feminine Gospels

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The internal rhyme between ‘tattoo’ and ‘map grew’ displays the permanence of her ‘map’ identity. Practically impossible to remove, the ‘tattoo’‘map’ is inescapable for the Map-Woman. She cannot escape her identity, it is permanently etched onto her skin. The internal rhyme is emblematic of this connection, reflecting a sense of togetherness. The past is depicted as tragic and oppressive. The lexis Duffy employs, ‘crying’, ‘snarl’, and ‘shrieks’ create a nightmarish scene of memory. She cannot escape these memories, the sound-based verbs calling out after her. Even the ‘motorway’ she uses to escape ‘groaned’, everything reminding her of her hometown.

The stories of the women are told by a third person narrator. The tone is ironic and bleakly humorous. The pace is fast, relying particularly on lists that carry their own significance to the reader. Duffy’s brand of magical realism is glorious and memorable. ‘The Map-Woman’ is a powerful and thoughtful poem, about the experiences and places mapped upon a body; ‘Beautiful’ holds a few echoes of ‘The Lady of Shallot’; ‘The Diet’ is about a woman who starves herself so much that she ends up shrinking. Duffy describes her as ‘Anorexia’s true daughter, a slip / of a girl, a shadow, dwindling away’. Allow me to share a passage from ‘The Woman Who Shopped’, in which a materialistic lady effectively turns into a department store: Duffy introduces a character who helps Helen, her female ‘maid’. This woman ‘loved her most’, loving her for herself instead of her beauty. Indeed, she would not ‘describe/one aspect of her face’, protecting Helen of Troy. Instead of furthering the iconic legend of Helen, she remains faithful, the only friendly character of this section is a female. This could be a mechanism through which Duffy suggests that women always support women, especially in retaliation to the male gaze. Flowers’ are often used as a stereotypical symbol of fertility and the delicate nature of women. Yet, by connecting with ‘sore’, placing this adjective before ‘flowers’, Duffy removes this archetypical notion of how women should portray themselves, tainting ‘flowers’ with an aching pain ‘sore’. This speaks to the female experience, childbirth is incredibly painful, and the delicate ‘flower’ symbol of women is ridiculous, Duffy transforms the image into something more realistic through the use of this oxymoron. Out of this ugliness women metamorphose under our eye. A shopaholic becomes a shop. In "Beautiful", a series of women appear to be manifestations of the same being, defined only by the ability to excite the desire of men. Helen of Troy changes into Cleopatra, Marilyn Monroe puts Sinatra on her record player before going off to sing "Happy Birthday" to President Kennedy. The dubious gift of beauty passes to Princess Diana, who obediently widens her eyes for the flashbulbs of the press. Helen and Cleopatra elude us with a certain dignity - well, they are essentially myths - but in our latterday world, to be desired brings more danger than privilege and has precious little to do with magic. Diana is insulted even as she smiles, and will soon feel "History's stinking breath in her face".

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In The World's Wife, her exhilarating collection of flights of fantasy, Duffy sex-changed the heroes of high and pop culture and made old stories shiver with life. On first glance, Feminine Gospels echoes its predecessor, retelling the world through women's eyes: 'The light music of girls... the faint strings/ of the old.' These tall tales, however, subvert life rather than literature, running miles with myths that don't exist but should. They are 'what if?' poems, from a world in which outrage, memory, a desire for babies or white goods can transform one utterly, like a secret Guinness Book of Records for womankind.

The longest poem in the book is "The Laughter of Stafford Girls' High" and Duffy clearly enjoyed writing it. At one level the poem is a tour de force of sparkle and fizz. A mysterious giggle grows ineluctably into an all-consuming merriment that destroys the whole structure of grammar school propriety. Those who went to such a grammar school, as I did, will recognise the discipline and the drudgery, and recall the passionate longing to escape shared by teachers and students alike. At the same time it is hard to keep out of mind Searle's St Trinian's, or even the hearty attachments of Angela Brazil's captains and head girls. I found the poetry lay mainly in the asides: a teacher on a cold night, watching her own breath, a moment of loving abandon, an evocation of "The world like Quink outside". For all its accomplishment, this was not my favourite poem in the collection. Structure: trisects unequal length lines. This is ironic as Duffy uses a structured form of dramatic monologue The end of this section points to Cleopatra’s downfall, yet is much more subtle than the other sections. This is perhaps relating to how successful Cleopatra was in her life, her demise only a tiny part of her story. The historic romance of ‘armies changing sides, of cities lost forever in the sea’ creates a tone of reverence. Cleopatra is fantastically powerful, her demise coming from a self-inflicted ‘snake’ bite. This section ends with a powerful demonstration of Cleopatra’s success. The clever grammatical division, using caesura, or everything in this section coming before ‘of snakes’ represents her final moment. Death to a snake bite is her final act, ‘snakes’ bluntly finishing her section. Throughout Feminine Gospels the reader understands a little bit more about how society views or pressures women, and even how women view and pressure themselves. This is all done through subject and form as a way of enlightening the reader into very current issues in the modern world. It is not merely a desire to encapsulate women, but a desire to press the issue of better understanding women. At no point does Duffy let the reader off the hook with a soft poem about love or even desire. Feminine Gospels is very much an indictment on the modern world, and how women are still very much controlled.

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Duffy employs many techniques within this expansive poem. Yet, one that appears consistently throughout is a caesura. Indeed, Duffy uses caesura within Map-Woman to control the speed of reading, some parts slowed by the employment of caesura. These slight metrical pauses allow Duffy to emphasize certain moments. Indeed, ‘waiting to start’, is encased in caesura, grammatically isolated. The two pauses around this phrase, caused by a caesura, lead to a slower reading, reflecting the character waiting through her youth until she is old enough to leave. Duffy controls the rhythm, using caesura to place emphasis on many key moments within ‘ The Map Woman‘. This book is not bound by a theme like The World's Wife, which trained an idiosyncratic eye on the women at the side of historical or legendary men. Yet, rather as the Long Queen - in the poem that opens this collection - rules over a female population of "wetnurses/witches, widows, wives, mothers of all these", Duffy too knows her constituency.

Yet, Cleopatra is able to leverage her beauty to get what she wants, Duffy presents the woman’s power. The fact she reduces ‘Caesar’ to ‘gibbering’ displays the control she has. We know this is a sexual power by the location, ‘in bed’. Duffy suggests that Cleopatra gains power by accepting her beauty and using it to manipulate and control men. Upon deciding on a man to be with, Helen ‘fled’. Again, Duffy uses caesura to emphasize this word. The use of ‘fled’ plays into the semantics of hunter and prey, with Helen being reduced to a fleeing animal. The reaction to this escape inspires ‘War’, the grave impact of her beauty leading to total chaos. Helen is followed and prosecuted only for her beauty. The poem comprises seven six-lined stanzas. They are carefully structured with lines of increasing length, as if gradually building her power and authority. The consistency reflects the stability of her reign. One of the key themes within Beautiful is Duffy’s exploration of women in history. History is a major theme that Duffy discusses within ‘Feminine Gospels’. This poem uses history to suggest that women have been exploited since the beginning of time, both in fantasy and real life. Duffy exposes the horrors of this exploitation, discussing how it often leads to pain and death. Women are oppressed at the hands of men, both individuals and making up larger forms of society.The Long Queen‘ by Carol Ann Duffy elevates the status of women by focusing on one of the most influential rulers in history. Duffy begins by focusing on the principle of marrying ‘Time’ instead of an actual husband, and Elizabeth focuses on ruling successfully instead of marriage and romance. Duffy then moves through the type of people that Queen Elizabeth rules over, focusing on the blinding quality of being a woman, everyone encompassed within her reign. Duffy explores how the Queen’s ‘laws’: supporting all women, dispelling the fear and shame around periods, ensuring that emotions are shown, and safe childbirth. The final stanza suggests that Queen Elizabeth would have given up everything to extend the voice of women, championing females across her ‘time’ and long into the future. References to Queen Elizabeth I, who rejected various suitors. 'Long Queen' could be seen as patron saint of women, as she rejects most patriarchal standards The voice is that of a third person narrator who, it can be assumed, also represents the poet. The tone is didactic, formal and ceremonial, as if instructing listeners and readers. This is reinforced by the questions and the introductory first words of each stanza. One of the most important lines in the poem, ‘Over her breast was the heart of the town’, stems in this second stanza. Duffy connects ‘town’ and ‘breast’, linking place and body. This is emblematic of the content of the poem as a whole, place etched on the woman’s skin. Yet, this also suggests how important a home town is to someone. No matter if you hate or love where you were born, you can never change the fact that you were born there. The ‘heart’, representing the center of this ‘town’ is above the woman’s ‘breast’, being held close to her own heart. This represents how she keeps her hometown deep inside her, the memories of that place shaping her into the person she is. Using ‘breast’ also centers the poem on a uniquely female perspective, Duffy further connecting with other poems in ‘Feminine Gospels’.

Alongside displaying the content of the poem, Duffy also cleverly suggests the connection between place and identity through the title. Indeed, ‘Map’ and ‘Woman’ are connected by a hyphen. In doing this, Duffy symbolizes the innate connection between place and identity. The woman can never escape her ‘map’ because it is a part of her. It is not ‘Map’‘Woman’, but ‘Map-Woman’, the two things fused into one. The fact that each word is capitalized could also suggest that both are equally important to the story. While indeed touching on identity, Duffy suggests this is just as importantly a poem that focuses on the female experience. This is a woman’s body, her story told by Duffy. Although not visibly seen, her influence is felt across society as she ‘ruled and reigned.’ There is a sense of mythical to this style of ruling, with Queen Elizabeth being idolized through Duffy’s mythic semantics, ‘some said’ playing into the narrative of a legendary figure. The third person discussed in Duffy’s Beautiful is Marilyn Monroe. Monroe was an American actress, model, and singer. She was emblematic of America’s changing attitudes to sexuality, becoming a sex symbol of the 1950s and 60s. She was viciously controlled by Hollywood, eventually dying at the age of 32 to a sleeping pill overdose. The triple reception of ‘loved’ signals the happiness that Helen experiences. Now away from her perusers, she is able to experience the happiness of love. Yet, the men still follow her, wanting to contain her beauty from themselves. Asyndeton is once again used across the end of the fourth stanza, Duffy linking together names for Helen. The large number of names people call Helen could further link to her name, her notorious beauty calling the attention of every man.

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The rest of this stanza focuses on the monotony of her game city, Duffy using images of industry. Indeed, ‘railway station’, ’trains’‘operation’ all contain ideas of bleak scenery. Even the trains themselves are personified as ‘sigh[ing] on the platforms’. Duffy presents a grey scene of her home town, the only thing exciting her is ‘pining’ for escape. Be it ‘Glasgow, London, Liverpool’, anything that will allow her to escape from the city she has grown up in. The opening line of the poem instantly outlines what it going to be important within ‘ The Long Queen‘, the focus being on the Queen herself, and the length of her reign, ‘couldn’t die’. The harsh end stop following this line compounds a sense of certainty, the statement emphasized through this grammatical structure. The short, stunted ‘Beauty is fame’ is followed by a caesura. Duffy emphasizes the brutality of this line. Helen did not ask for beauty, yet she is made into an icon that must be pursued due to the male gaze. They look upon her and whisper her name, spreading her name across the globe. The perusers kill her husband, ‘sliced a last grin in his throat’, male rage and jealousy destroying Helen’s life. One technique that Duffy uses many times throughout the poem is the asyndeton. Most obviously within the first and second stanzas, asyndeton is used to create an extended image – almost like an endless list. In this first stanza, Duffy does this to create the idea that Queen Elizabeth had a huge list of suitors, all of which she rejected. In the second stanza, asyndeton is used to encompass all types of women, the endless list attempting to capture every representation of women. The second section, depicting Cleopatra, is built from lengthy stanzas. Each of these long-form stanzas reflects major parts of the ruler’s life. The length of this section could be emblematic of her long reign, Duffy remembering the success of Cleopatra. Even when discussing Cleopatra’s death, it is contained within two words, only a slight mark on the incredible reign she had. Duffy emulates her success through the extended stanzas, containing an element of Cleopatra’s longevity through this style.