Analysis of Not my Best Side by U.A. Fanthorpe

Secondly, the maiden, who in Uccello’s painting is already depicted as a maiden different to the traditional virgin, as she is standing perfectly calm, holding the dragon on a leash, is turned into a post modernisation character who, this time has a sexual mind from a different time period to the one in which the painting was produced. To her, the dragon is “so nicely physical”, with “lovely green tail” and “that sexy tail”. She also turns the representation of being eaten into a sexual desire and talks of how she could see all of the dragon’s equipment. As for St George, or “this boy” (yet again referring to the saint’s beardless and baby-like face) to the maiden, she “didn’t much fancy him” because of all his concealing armour that could be hiding “acne, blackheads or even bad breath” and because of his “really dangerous horse”. Yet again, this is a deep contrast to the prototype legend where the maid should instantly fall in love with St George and then run, screaming, from the dragon. At the end of the maiden’s monologue, Fanthorpe decides to use one last line of utter femininity on behalf of the victim by saying “And a girl’s got to think of her future”.

The last monologue is St George’s, who in contrast to the maiden’s is written from a very masculine point of view. He boasts of his “diplomas in Dragon Management and Virgin Reclamation” as well as his “latest model” horse with “Automatic transmission” and his “custom-built” spear and “prototype armour”. His monologue works well with that of the virgin’s who are both not interested in each other. He complains that the maiden, like the dragon, is in his way and doesn’t understand that the maiden doesn’t want to be rescued “in the most contemporary way” and in the ways that “sociology and myth have designed’ for her. He also fears for the future of industry, complaining that she and her “choosy” ways are “endangering job prospects in the spear-and horse-building industries”. In opposition to the maiden’s last line, his is a very macho “You’re in my way” statement.

The structure of the poem is clever in the way that the three stanza/monologue form reflects the triangular character of the painting. The verses are also numerated, to emphasise this.

The very modern and formal language itself is a deep contrast with the myth and the painting which are more conventional representations of the slaying. Such language are the rhetorical questions

“Why, I said to myself, should my conqueror

Be so ostentatiously beardless, and ride

A horse with a deformed neck and square hoofs?”

from the dragon and

“I mean,

What was he like underneath the hardware?”

from the maiden. These questions reflect the casualness of the characters.

The enjambments are also used in a very good way to reflect the casual and informal speech-like aspect to the poem. For example

“So when this boy turned up, wearing machinery,

On a really dangerous horse, to be honest…”

This enjambment could be used to portray a pause in a sentence, an afterthought or even and exaggeration in speech. Many more such enjambments are used throughout the text.

        Much of the vocabulary in the text is used to reflect the carelessness and modernity of the characters. Such words and expressions are “as you can see”, “so” (used many times), “well” (“Well you could see all his equipment”), “I mean”, “that”, “this”, “sexy”, “I didn’t much fancy him” etc.

        In conclusion, I thought that the poem was very clever and amusing in the way that it creates a parody out of not only a myth, but also a painting illustrating that myth. The characters are careless but also fearless and everything exemplified in Fanthorpe’s poem is in contrast to the prototype legend.