“…it sat in his palm like a light bulb. On.
I thought to myself, Is he putting fairy lights in the tree?”
As she watches King Midas moving through the house, transforming the objects he touches, Mrs Midas remains perplexed. Mundane objects are suddenly being brought to attention in front of her eyes, luxurious and gleaming “…The doorknobs gleamed.”
“He drew the blinds….
…I thought of the Field of the Cloth of Gold and of Miss Macready.”
King Midas draws the blinds, seemingly against the darkening sky. Yet Duffy compares this act to the Field of the Cloth of Gold and Miss Macready. I believe these statements have both obvious and conflicting hidden meanings. The Field of the Cloth of Gold refers to the meeting ground of King Henry VIII and King Francis I, Where both kings attempted to outshine each other with lavish golden tents and clothing etc. Maybe Mrs Midas/Duffy are accusing the King of showing off. At the same time the mention of Miss Macready - A golden haired Spy, from 1960’s TV- could mean that the King is closing the blinds out of privacy, to prevent anyone from witnessing his new powers or riches.
Whether in denial or through fear of her husband or the situation itself, Mrs Midas carries on as normal. In the forth stanza she serves up the meal;
“…For starters, corn on the cob.
Within seconds he was spitting out the teeth of the rich.”
Duffy is speaking metaphorically when she deems the King as spitting out the teeth of the rich, these are in fact the kernels of corn that have turned to gold and so therefore resemble gold teeth. As the stanza progresses Mrs Midas is distinctively becoming more agitated, her hand shakes as she pours the wine, she is probably still confused and has become nervous or anxious. She continues to watch and witnesses the King picking up his glass to drink. Duffy describes through alliteration the transcendence of the glass changing into the golden chalice “…he picked up the glass, goblet, golden chalice, drank.”
It all becomes too much for Mrs Midas at this point and she begins to scream. King Midas sinks to his knees seemingly saddened at the realisation of what he has done.
“….I made him sit
On the other side of the room and keep his hands to himself.
I locked the cat in the cellar. I moved the phone.”
Mrs Midas distances herself from her husband, making safe the things that are important to her. Incorporating a little satire, she also disregards those that are not “The toilet I didn’t mind..”
Duffy finalises the integration of modern life into Mrs Midas’ tale by mentioning the phone and draws the reader back to present day. I feel she does this in order to link the poems further occurrences with modern day marriages. Mrs Midas begins to contemplate the repercussions of her husbands actions and she starts to feel resentful towards him, this is expressed through the way in which she begins to address him. Upon watching her husband unsuccessfully attempt to smoke a golden cigarette she uses sarcasm to vent her frustrations “…At least, I said, you‘ll be able to give up smoking for good.”. Roles reversed, Mrs Midas banishes her husband to the spare room in order to prevent herself from being petrified, literally. She refers to him as; “…turning the spare room into the tomb of Tutankhamun.” again using internal rhymes. This sentence brings to mind visions of the King moving around the room, transforming what would usually be a normal room, into one that is luxurious and lavish, fit for a king.
Mrs Midas becomes nostalgic as she looks back on the events, she mentions the halcyon days, those happy, carefree ‘golden’ days of the past when her and her husband expressed their passion for one another;
“in those halcyon days; unwrapping each other, rapidly, Like presents, fast food.”
By comparing this to the unwrapping of presents, she is recalling the anticipation or excitement usually in place when opening a gift, the mention of fast food also brings to mind images of tearing off and discarding clothing, hungrily and expectantly.
Mrs Midas is angered and saddened by her husbands stupidity and selfish indulgence, he failed to think about the consequences of his actions and had absolutely no regard for his wife or how it would effect his everyday life, consumed by greed and vanity, he didn’t think any further then the riches he could create.
“What gets me now is not the idiocy or greed
but lack of thought for me. Pure selfishness. I sold the contents of the house...”
Mrs Midas’ may not only be referring to her husband when she mentions pure selfishness but also to her own act of selling up and moving on. She wistfully reminisces about her husband and is reminded of him during distinctive times of the day “I think of him in certain lights, dawn, late afternoon,” It is the golden glow of the sun rising and setting at these points in the day that bring him to mind. Ironically Duffy/Mrs Midas ends the poem with the very thing that became the problem in the first place, his touch. “I miss most even now, his warm hands on my skin, his touch”
Throughout the poetic story telling, Duffy depicts a continuous stream of rich colours in order to compliment the tale. Set in the autumn month of September it instantly brings to mind the luxurious reds, golds and yellows of the season and contains many references to golden coloured objects; Fondante d’Automne pears, white wine, luteous stem, etc. Duffy’s powerful imagery from beginning to end allows its readers to create a mental image of the scenery and enables you to view the scene through the eyes and mind state of Mrs Midas. The stanzas are worded and constructed in a manner that makes it possible to feel the emotions running through Mrs Midas mind as she expresses her thoughts. Duffy successfully combines two era’s, one of Greek mythology and the other modern life, I believe this is in order to indirectly make comparisons about how men throughout the ages allow power to go to their heads and make misjudgements because of this.
