Poetry comparison between Big Sue and Now, Voyager(TM) and Recognition(TM) by Carol Ann Duffy

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 Danielle DiTella        Page         11/1/2008

Poetry comparison between ‘Big Sue and Now, Voyager’ and ‘Recognition’ by Carol Ann Duffy

Both of these poems show a great understanding into what the women, who, are so easily judged by their appearance within society, actually experience and feel like every second of their life. They both show how they feel alienated from the rest of the world, isolated and feel that the element of love they once had in their life has disappeared without leaving even a trace.

The first poem ‘Big Sue and Now, Voyager’ is written in first person and has a serious tone the whole way through. The fact that Duffy has written it in third person really shows that it is from the perspective of a person who is judging Big Sue, it is not coming personally from her, yet the reader gets the feeling that it is still very personal and real as each description is so detailed, yet written in quite simple language. The title ‘Big Sue and Now, Voyager’ sums up the poem in just a few words. The fact that Duffy describes Sue as ‘Big’, tells the reader that is what, who she is and how she is identified. The word ‘Voyager’ as well as being a film, identifies with the film Sue is described as watching in the poem. However, as well as quite clearly being a film, it also has the meaning of the wonderful journey ‘Big Sue’, experiences whilst watching this film as if she is really there.

Duffy makes the first sentence very powerful with the use of the strong syllables, ‘wide, smooth flesh’. Duffy also sets the imagery of an over-weight woman right from the beginning of her poem, but in a positive way ‘perfect miniature’. However on the next line, this positive description turns to quite a cold and heavy image, when her face is compared with ‘a slab of stone’, and creates a large image. The third line ‘Big Sue is Betty Davies’, answers the question about, who Sue really is deep down. The fact that she is taking the role of a very famous, beautiful and slim 40’s actress makes Big Sue’s life seem quite pathetic and even more insignificant, this is also highlighted because it is not only once in a while she does this but ‘Most evenings’. The emphasis on the single word ‘Alone.’ in the middle of the sentence reinforces the fact that she really is, or feels isolated from everything and everyone. Duffy creates imagery again emphasising that Sue is shutting the world out, by the way she has the ‘curtains drawn’. The reader’s image of an isolated over-weight woman is therefore reaffirmed. I think Duffy has intentionally not made this first verse syllabic or rhythmical, because it then complements the emptiness and sorrow Big Sue feels. The image of the television set that Duffy creates in the first stanza, having ‘the same reoccurring dream’, could symbolise Big Sue, as she is empty, as is the television and the same reoccurring dream could be the film that consistently watches dreaming that she really is ‘Bette Davies’. The description of ‘Mushrooms tasting of kisses’ and ‘Sherry Trifle’ being her ‘honey moon’, gives a reason behind why she if over weight and unhappy, because she replaces some of  the essential and pleasurable things in life with food.

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Her dreaming starts to take place in the second stanza where Big Sue imagines ‘Paul Henreid’ lighting two cigarettes and putting ‘one in her mouth’. It is seen as an exciting and trendy thing to happen and especially to Big Sue. Duffy makes a contrast between her ‘little flat in Tooting’, which is quite an ordinary place in London, to a floating Ship. The huge difference between these two images is also emphasised by the way Duffy puts

    ‘is a floating ship.’

one the line below the first. Duffy puts a short one sentence word ‘Violins’, in the ...

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