Commentary on Duffy’s Poetry
How does Duffy use transformation, in poems “Little Red Cap” and “Penelope” from The World’s Wife, to explore and challenge the repression of female agency?
Through her poetry anthology The World’s Wife (Duffy), Duffy challenges the idea that women are solely ‘wives’ and companions of ‘great’ men by replacing the traditionally masculine voice in classic western narratives with the lived experiences of female personas who have hitherto remained in the background. “Little Red Cap” rewrites a familiar fairy tale. Whereas the character Little Red Cap emerges unscathed from her encounter with the wicked wolf, saved only by a passing woodcutter in the Brothers Grimm’s 1812 tale (Grimm et al.), Duffy’s protagonist is the producer and director of her own fate. Likewise, Duffy’s eponymous speaker in “Penelope” is depicted as the embroiderer of her own destiny who remains unfazed in her work when her ‘great’ husband returns. Where Homer’s Penelope waits patiently devising strategies to delay marrying one of her many suitors, including secretly unravelling a shroud she weaves (Homer and Kline), Duffy’s Penelope discovers her passion in embroidery, and through this, gains independence and self-actualisation, changing her perspective of the world. The poems “Little Red Cap” and “Penelope” both transform their source materials by rewriting classic narratives as dramatic monologues that chart the development and growth of male ‘companions’. Through such transformations, Duffy’s work serves not only to undermine masculine representations of female identity, but also reclaims for women their voice and agency.
The familiar storyline and characters are repeated in Duffy’s “Little Red Cap'' even as it serves to convey a different message. In the original fairytale, Little Red Cap is a “sweet little girl” on her way to her grandmother’s when she was deceived by a wolf, as she “didn’t know what a wicked animal he was” (Grimm et al.). Here, Little Red Cap is portrayed as an ignorant child, and so, at risk to a dominant male, the wolf. Duffy’s version begins in a similar vein. Typical of an assertive masculine man who puts his masculinity on show, Duffy’s wolf doesn’t hide himself, but “stood in a clearing, reading his verse out loud” (7) in his “wolfy drawl” (8). Predictably, the female persona catalogues his physical attributes in familiar lines: “What big ears / He had! What big eyes he had! What teeth!” (10–11). There is a sense that the speaker, like the little girl in Grimm’s tale, will fall prey to some cunning beneath the wolf’s carefully performed masculinity. Yet, this expectation is immediately subverted in subsequent lines when Little Red Cap reveals that it was she who had “made quite sure [the wolf] spotted [her]” (11), suggesting that she was not so naive as to be unaware of the tactics required to attract the wolf. The use of hypophora in “you might ask why. Here’s why. Poetry.” (13) presents Little Red Cap as confident and self-assured, satisfying her intellectual curiosity and literary ambition through creativity. The wolf is further displaced as he is described in almost geriatric terms: a “greying wolf” (34) that “howls the same old song at the moon, year in, year out / Season after season, same rhyme, same reason” (35–36). This wolf is no longer a predator, but a vainglorious, “greying” (34) bore, who grows old repeating himself. The wolf’s false sense of control is further disclosed through the persona’s tone of certainty in “The wolf, I knew, would lead me deep into the woods” (14). Her amused and playful tone in “What little girl doesn’t dearly love a wolf?” (22) discredits the paternalistic idea that maturing girls are frightened of sex and confronts the social concept of females as passive beings.
If Duffy’s transformation of the naive child and devious wolf challenges gender stereotypes, then the subsequent transformation of her female protagonist as she asserts increasing agency, going “in search of a living bird—white dove— / Which flew, straight, from [her] hands to his open mouth” (25), demonstrates growth and maturity that intellectual and sexual experience funds. “White dove” (25) connotes purity, innocence, and the poetry she searches for. While “One bite, dead” (26) signifies loss of innocence after her first sexual encounter, the decisive tone highlights the will and curiosity of a young girl who embraces experience. Poetry symbolises her transformed identity as Little Red Cap revels in artistic creation, seeming almost euphoric as “words, words were truly alive” on her “tongue” and in her “head” (29). The rapid repetition and personification of the written “word” (29) convey the awe of art fuelling imagination, culminating in an epiphany of “music and blood” (30) with the music seeming almost primeval and the blood as a life force. Overall, the erotic lexicon conveys the transformative power evoked by intellectual passions that she has come into.
Her transformation led by her curiosity and passion to know more ultimately results in her taking “an axe to the wolf” (38) as he slept, and in just “one chop” (39), directly establishes female assertiveness, metaphorically freeing her from patricharial domination that has in previous iterations of the fairy tale, limited her growth. This blow, from “scrotum to throat” (39), glorifies Little Red Cap’s termination of the wolf’s bloodline and curtailment of masculine voice, for only in its erasure and censure can the female voice emerge. Killing the wolf, Little Red Cap sees “the glistening, virgin white of [her] grandmother’s bones” (40), a metaphor for collective generations of oppressed women. The goodness and purity symbolised by “virgin white” (40) contend that women are not reduced or defiled by their sexual encounters, but empowered by them. This idea is accentuated in the concluding line where the heroine emerges from the woods with flowers, but this time as an adult full of knowledge and experience with not a huntsman in sight.
Similarly, Duffy’s portrayal of Penelope conforms in order to subvert convention. In “The Odyssey”, the tale Duffy’s “Penelope” rewrites, Penelope is the paragon of wifely fidelity who faithfully awaits her husband’s return (Homer and Kline). Likewise, Duffy’s “Penelope” commences in a similar manner. The speaker expresses “hop[e]” of seeing her husband “saunter home” as she “looked along the road”, conforming at first blush to Homer’s depiction of a dependent wife (1–2). Yet, this is subtly subverted through the clear delineation of time with the foregrounding of “at first” (1), indicating that this is not the manner in which Penelope continues to live. Indeed, subsequent lines describe the “warm” dog—not the wife—to be in “mourn[ing]” (5), where the animal’s unwavering devotion stands in contrast with Penelope’s nonchalance and increasing self-awareness—she “noticed” (7) that she was no longer “noticing” (8) her husband’s absence.
Penelope’s transformation comes full circle when Odysseus’ eventual return, described as “a far-too-late familiar tread” (43), is met with an utter lack of excitement. Penelope “lick[s] [her] scarlet thread”, conjuring a visual image of a bloodthirsty, ruthless predator as she “aimed it surely at the middle of the needle’s eye”, the emphatic and rhythmic speed of the line conveying incisiveness and forcefulness, and ultimately her desire not to bend to her husband’s will, but to “surely” continue to craft her own destiny (44–45). Readers are reminded of the link between writer and embroiderer, both of whom weave their own stories and control the destinies of the characters depicted in them. Odysseus in this reading then, is no longer “heroism’s boy” (23), but Penelope’s husband, a man now subjected to a woman’s will.
Duffy creates a Penelope that is self-fulfilled, not bound by men. Where embroidery is taken up as a diversion at first to “amuse” (10), it soon becomes a “lifetime’s industry” (11) that turns Penelope into a “self-contained, absorbed and content” (41) individual. This contrast highlights the typical devaluation of ‘women’s work’ and the stereotype that such occupations are merely housewives’ pastimes. This self-realization is evident in the way Penelope dismisses her suitors as “the others” (28), undifferentiated and unworthy of attention. Here, the suitors “disturb [her] peace” (29), suggesting she is comfortable and satisfied with her present ‘single’ state. She is “most certainly not waiting” (42) emphatically challenging the stance that women need men to validate their worth in society. Instead, she successfully deflects social norms with her aesthetic decisiveness as she chooses “between three greens for the grass / A smoky pink, a shadow’s grey” (15–16). The metrical structure in “three greens for the grass” (15), constructed by a spondee followed by an anapest, creates a bouncy rhythm, and rhythmic repetition of ‘gr’ evokes a sense of creative enthusiasm. Furthermore, Duffy uses nature imagery in “snapdragon gargling a bee / I threaded walnut brown for a tree” (18) to convey lyricism, the ‘g’ sounds creating motions for the persona and readers, and the rhyming couplet rendering fulfillment. In sewing her ideal image, Penelope exercises agency marking the beginning of her journey of self-actualisation.
Duffy conforms to the narrative structure of her source materials insofar as to transform traditional representations of the feminine in Western literature. Her collection specifically foregrounds the lived experiences of female characters whose names are familiar to readers but whose stories and voices remain untold. The use of dramatic monologue both at once reclaims the female as an individual in the process of becoming a ‘hero’ in their own way, while quieting the canonical male voice that has dominated public discourse. As readers, we resonate with Penelope’s “smile of a woman at the centre / of this world” (40), calling upon women to own their worth, identity, and destiny through literature.
Works Cited
Duffy, Carol A. The World's Wife: Poems. London: Picador, 1999. Print.
Grimm, Jacob, and Wilhelm Grimm. “Little Red Cap.” Translated by D. L. Ashliman, Grimm 26: Little Red Cap, University of Pittsburgh, 2015, www.pitt.edu/~dash/grimm026.html.
Homer. “Homer: The Odyssey.” Translated by Anthony Kline, Homer (C.750 BC) - The Odyssey: In Translation., 2004, www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Greek/Odhome.php.
Appendix
Appendix A
Little Red Cap
1 At childhood’s end, the houses petered out
Into playing fields, the factory, allotments
Kept, like mistresses, by kneeling married men
The silent railway line, the hermit’s caravan
5 Till you came at last to the edge of the woods
It was there that I first clapped eyes on the wolf
He stood in a clearing, reading his verse out loud
In his wolfy drawl, a paperback in his hairy paw
Red wine staining his bearded jaw. What big ears
10 He had! What big eyes he had! What teeth!
In the interval, I made quite sure he spotted me
Sweet sixteen, never been, babe, waif, and bought me a drink
My first. You might ask why. Here’s why. Poetry
The wolf, I knew, would lead me deep into the woods
15 Away from home, to a dark tangled thorny place
Lit by the eyes of owls. I crawled in his wake
My stockings ripped to shreds, scraps of red from my blazer
Snagged on twig and branch, murder clues. I lost both shoes
But got there, wolf’s lair, better beware. Lesson one that night
20 Breath of the wolf in my ear, was the love poem
I clung till dawn to his thrashing fur, for
What little girl doesn’t dearly love a wolf?
Then I slid from between his heavy matted paws
And went in search of a living bird—white dove—
25 Which flew, straight, from my hands to his open mouth
One bite, dead. How nice, breakfast in bed, he said
Licking his chops. As soon as he slept, I crept to the back
Of the lair, where a whole wall was crimson, gold, aglow with books
Words, words were truly alive on the tongue, in the head
30 Warm, beating, frantic, winged; music and blood
But then I was young – and it took ten years
In the woods to tell that a mushroom
Stoppers the mouth of a buried corpse, that birds
Are the uttered thought of trees, that a greying wolf
35 Howls the same old song at the moon, year in, year out
Season after season, same rhyme, same reason. I took an axe
To a willow to see how it wept. I took an axe to a salmon
To see how it leapt. I took an axe to the wolf
As he slept, one chop, scrotum to throat, and saw
40 The glistening, virgin white of my grandmother’s bones
I filled his old belly with stones. I stitched him up
Out of the forest I come with my flowers, singing, all alone.
Appendix B
Penelope
1 At first, I looked along the road
hoping to see him saunter home
among the olive trees,
a whistle for the dog
5 who mourned him with his warm head on my knees.
Six months of this
and then i noticed that whole days had passed
without my noticing.
I sorted cloth and scissors, needle, thread,
10 thinking to amuse myself,
but found a lifetime’s industry instead.
I sewed a girl
under a single star—cross-stitch, silver silk—
running after childhood’s bouncing ball.
15 I chose between three greens for the grass;
a smoky pink, a shadow’s grey
to show a snapdragon gargling a bee
I threaded walnut brown for a tree,
my thimble like an acorn
20 pushing up through umber soil.
Beneath the shade
I wrapped a maiden in a deep embrace
with heroism’s boy
and lost myself completely
25 in a wild embroidery of love, lust, lessons learnt;
then watched him sail away
into the loose gold stitching of the sun.
And when the others came to take his place,
disturb my peace,
30 I played for time.
I wore a widow’s face, kept my head down,
did my work by day, at night unpicked it.
I knew which hour of the dark the moon
would start to fray,
35 I stitched it.
Grey threads and brown
pursued my needle’s leaping fish
to form a river that would never reach the sea.
I tried it. I was picking out
40 the smile of a woman at the centre
of this world, self-contained, absorbed, content,
most certainly not waiting,
when I heard a far-too-late familiar tread outside the door.
I licked my scarlet thread
45 and aimed it surely at the middle of the needle’s eye once more.
