Write a close analysis of Penelope Explain how Duffy creates the female voice and how typical the poem is of other poetry in the collection.

Ameer Patel, Ms Dinsa English poetry application.

Write a close analysis of “Penelope” Explain how Duffy creates the female voice and how typical the poem is of other poetry in the collection.

“Duffy takes a cheeky, subversive, no nonsense swipe at men of history and myth.” - The Times

‘The World’s wife’ a series of witty dramatic monologues spoken by women formally airbrushed from fairy tales and myths. Duffy presents Penelope as a woman who grows more independent of her husband as she initially casually passes time by embroidering. Duffy subverts the male dominance of these tales by demonstrating how unlike in the original myth, Penelope grows accustomed to Odysseus’ absence as embroidery becomes the focal point of her life.

In the ‘World’s Wife’ Duffy makes women the protagonists of the stories and therefore subverts the idea of weak women behind powerful men. To understand why Duffy would choose to write the ‘World’s wife’ one must understand her own political ideologies. Carol Ann Duffy, ‘feminist and leftish’ as time.com puts, is the first female poet Laurette, furthermore she is the first ‘openly gay’ poet laureate as Duffy describes herself. Duffy proves her feminist viewpoints herself as she admitted in an interview she only accepted the title of poet laureate not because she wanted to, but because there have been ‘no other female’ poet laureates in the past.

The motif of embroidery is used by Duffy to present Penelope’s growing independence. Penelope first embroiders a rather simplistic images of a ‘girl’ under a ‘single star’ however as the poem digresses she embroiders more adventurous things such as ‘a snapdragon gargling a bee’ this technique shows how the confidence of the female voice grows as as Penelope’s mind becomes focused soley on embroidering and not on the absence of her husband where she had previously hoped to see him ‘saunter home’.

The use of ‘I’ in the poem emphasizes the new female dominance of this tale through Duffy’s technique. The themes and ideas of the poem have to go through Penelope ‘I chose between three greens for the grass’ here we see Penelope’s embroidery allows her to remove herself from the social constraints of ancient society, she is free to do as she wishes. The world she creates in her embroidery becomes the world she chooses to live in, while this does show the strength of the female voice, it could be argued that Duffy’s message is that Penelope needs embroidery ...

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‘Thetis’ also shows the empowering of a woman as the poem progresses, in this poem Duffy again repeats ‘I’ seventeen times in order to present the growing voice and confidence of women, in addition Duffy presents ‘Thetis’ as a woman who transforms into a stronger animal as the poem evolves, for example she transforms from a ‘Dolphin’ to a ‘Whale, the ocean’s opera singer’. Her voice becomes louder with each transformation, the animals she turns into are all known for their ability to survive, resembling how ‘Penelope’ survives without her husband.

Duffy shows Penelope’s inner conflict by using different stanzas; using the Spenserian stanza' , Duffy shows that while the irregular lines symbolize the female voice’s indecision, the consistent use of nine line stanzas symbolizes the female voice’s composure found in embroidery. As Penelope becomes more engrossed in her embroidery her view on reality widens, her life is depicted in her embroidery as she describes her ‘thimble’ using the simile, like an ‘acorn pushing up from the soil’. This symbolizes how embroidery has become her rebirth and new found voice of independence from her husband. More over, Duffy uses enjambment

‘I sorted cloth, and scissors, needle. thread

Thinking to amuse myself’

throughout the poem in order to convey how embroidery has taken over Penelope’s life, the enjambment imitates the movement of the needle and therefore illustrates to the reader how embroidery seamlessly takes over Penelope’s life like it does in the poem.

Duffy uses imagery to give meaning to the female voice; colours show how Penelope felt during times of her life, Penelope recalls her childhood ‘at first I sewed a girl under a single star - cross stitch, silver silk’ the assonance used here illustrates the innocence and beauty of a young Penelope.

While waiting for her husband’s return she tries to capture its unfulfilled quality through the image of ‘running after childhood’s bouncing ball’ here she uses bright colours such as pinks and greens to show the hopefulness of youth, however she also depicts a disappointing image by adding ‘Grey threads and brown’, the change from ‘silver’ to ‘grey’ emphasizes Penelope’s disappointment, she is disappointed because she realizes she will be forever chasing a loving relationship with her husband like she was chasing the ball.

Duffy ends the poem again by using colours to convey meaning. The ‘scarlet thread’ symbolizes blood; it is Penelope’s warning to Odysseus. With her new found creative power she warns that her needle is a weapon, when her husband arrives Penelope merely gets on with her life, she is no longer concerned, unlike Mrs Midas who ends her poem longing for her husband’s ‘touch’ Penelope aims ‘surely at the needle’s eye once more’. This creates a violent image, Duffy is able to give the needle the power of a sword through Penelope’s accuracy with it. In ‘Salome’ Duffy also uses dark humour to show the female disregard to man; ‘ain’t life a bitch’ however while Salome is always able to have a relationship with a man, Penelope can’t, she shows her awareness of this by embroidering a river that will ‘never reach the sea’ this symbolizes he realisation that she will never reach a loving relationship with Odysseus, Duffy also shows this in the repetitive nature of Penelope’s twenty years away from her husband, ‘did my work by day and at night unpicked it’ her life restarts every day, she never gets to see if she will ever fulfil a loving relationship with Odysseus.

Duffy shrewdly uses alliteration to depict Penelope’s progression as a woman, she imitates the motion of the needle through the ‘Love’ and ‘lust’ of youth to ‘loss and ‘lessons learnt’. The effect of this is to illustrate to the reader how Penelope’s life has changed so seamlessly through her time embroidering Her ‘love’ has become ‘lessons learnt’ this relates to her growing awareness, she realizes that her time wishing for ‘love’ was a ‘loss’ of time and she now has ‘learnt’ her lesson. The metaphor of the moon shows that Penelope’s new found wisdom has allowed her to know ‘which hour the moon would start to fray’ the female voice has become while not cynical, all knowing about love, something she realizes she will never have.

While the poem does not contain a specific rhyming scheme, Duffy does use rhyming and half rhyming strewn throughout the poem, the effect of this is to again help show the seamless change of events in Penelope’s life, this said, when Penelope’s voice is at its strongest towards the last two stanzas Duffy removes any rhymes. Here the feminist in Duffy could be demonstrating that like Penelope does not need her husband, she herself does not need to fall back on the male invented technique of a rhyme to make her poem a success.

Overall, Duffy creates the female voice in Penelope by allowing it to grow in strength and independence through satirizing the stereotype of embroidery being associated with the weakness of women and instead making it symbolize strength and independence. As a result the female voice can be heard aloud throughout the poem. Through techniques that mirror this, Duffy successfully gives the women in the original tales the power to be heard, this is what I believe it the quintessential idea behind ‘The World’s Wife’, giving the women in literature an output to voice their opinions.

1000 words; excluding quotes, title, name of poems and collection.