Examine Duffys use of the dramatic monologue in The Worlds Wife anthology.

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English Literature Project:

Examine Duffy’s use of the dramatic monologue in The World’s Wife

Name: Matthew Joseph Addai

Date: 8th November 2010

The dramatic monologue is a poetic technique which allows poets to create and develop a persona, who addresses the reader through the telling of a story through their perspective, portraying their inner thoughts and feelings in the process. This poetic technique is used by many well respected poets, including Carol Ann Duffy, a feminist poet whose “World’s Wife” anthology consists of poems in which this technique can be found. The aim of this essay therefore, is to look at how effectively Duffy makes use of the dramatic monologue in this collection, taking the poems “Mrs Midas” and “Frau Freud” as examples.

Upon glancing upon the names of these poems and the content within them, one picks up on two things. Firstly, both poems make reference to the names of male figures that are historically famous, with the first making reference to the famous Greek myth of King Midas, whilst the second makes reference to the famous psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud. Another similarity that can be picked up on between all both poems (through their respective titles), is the fact that Duffy has used the dramatic monologue to create female partners for the male figures mentioned above. Each wife’s purpose is to re-tell the individual stories, ideals and situations associated with their husband’s from their perspective whilst acting as their personal critics. One can assume therefore that, Duffy’s main purpose through the use of the dramatic monologue is to give the other side to these famous stories, implying that there is more to them then what has been recorded in history and ultimately accepted by society, whilst at the same time giving each of them a modern setting through her choice of diction to make them accessible to the reader. This theme of revisionism and the power of the female voice, is recurrent throughout the entirety of the World’s Wife collection.

In the first poem “Mrs Midas”, Duffy uses the dramatic monologue to present Mrs Midas’ own account and complaint, of the events leading from the moment she realized her husband’s new found ability, and how his own self-absorption and greed with materialistic things cost him their marriage (in the original myth there was no mention of King Midas’ wife although it was shown that he had a daughter, thus this gives Duffy more of a reason to create the character of Mrs Midas). The structure of the poem is that of eleven sestets, which helps Mrs Midas break down the story into a steady progression of events in a modern middle class household, to make the poem more accessible.

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In the beginning of the poem, Duffy makes clear Mrs Midas’ utter shock and disbelief at the idea of her husband having a wish granted. This is shown through her effective use of rhetoric, whilst simultaneously making use of double meanings in the following lines, “Look we all have wishes; granted, But who has wishes granted?”. In the first half of the line, Mrs Midas shows her acceptability of the fact that all human beings have inner desires and wishes, and that the word “granted” here, acknowledges this fact. However the second half of the line seems to counter this ...

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