Subversion and Literary Devices Used in Carol Ann Duffy's Poem The World’s Wife

Growing up in the 21st century, children are exposed to thousands of children stories written by numerous well-known authors including Dr. Seuss, Roald Dahl, J. K. Rowling, and A. A. Milne. Poet Laureate, Carol Ann Duffy uses ‘The World’s Wife’ as a platform to adapt stories that are centralized around men. However, subverts this perspective and portrays the protagonist in her own feminist belief, protesting against a patriarchal society by empowering women - female dominance/ superiority, and making their voices heard through well-known historical stories.

Duffy incorporates themes that revolve around the ideas of relationships, love, betrayal, manipulation, and the loss of love & struggle through the utilization of a range of stylistic features such as allusion, rhetorical questions, word choice, and first-person narrative in order to elicit the desperation of the protagonist’s point of view. This essay will explore two poems from Duffy’s anthology: ‘The Devil’s Wife’ and ‘Delilah’, examining the way Duffy protests against a patriarchal society and the equality between men and women.

Women are stereotyped as individuals who are ‘fragile’, ‘powerless’, ‘products’, ‘family laborers’, ‘uneducated’, and the labels list on. The poem ‘Devil’s Wife’ goes against the stereotype of “perfect women”. Duffy creates a sinister atmosphere by dividing the poem into 5 subsections: Dirt, Medusa, Bible, Night and Appeal in order to represent the stages of Myra Hindley’s trial and sentencing as Duffy enters in the mind of Hindley and portrays her as being controlled through the use of various poetic features such as rhetorical questions, first-person narrative, and anaphora. ‘The Devil’s Wife’ is based on the news event that took place from July 1963 and

October 1965 in Manchester. Moors Murders: Ian Brady and Myra Hindley terrorized the city of Manchester by sexual assaulting and murdering five children in total. This particular tragedy greatly influenced and affected Duffy’s childhood as stated in an interview with the Guardian: “The Moors murders, in which children appeared to vanish from the face of the earth, were part of my growing up.' (She was born in Glasgow in 1955, and moved to Stafford aged six.) (The Guardian, 2012).

One’s point of view of the poem is Duffy choosing this specific news event because as a feminist she is able to protest against inequality between men and women. Hindley refers once more to her claim, also made at the beginning of the poem, that she was ‘the Devil’s wife’. This suggests that, with Brady, she was not an independent young woman able to make her own decisions about right and wrong, but drawn into evil by ‘the Devil’. Hindley is aware, that her life was ruined; she destroyed it herself. The nation experienced shame and horror, hence the rhetorical question,‘What did I do to us all, to myself? When I was the Devil’s Wife?’. Duffy’s intentions for ending the poem with the rhetorical questions were for Hindley to show guilt and shame, leaving the reader to question whether Hindley truly regretted what she had done.

In contrast to ‘The Devil’s Wife’, Duffy alludes to the biblical story of ‘Samson and Delilah’ in which displays the superiority and manipulation of women. ‘Delilah’ is based on the biblical story in Judges 13-16, where the poem is told from Delilah’s point of view and is portrayed as dominant, powerful, and manipulative contrasting to the biblical story. One may argue that this poem is a biography of Duffy’s life. Duffy has been in many relationships, however, she wasn’t given much dominance in the relationships she was in. Duffy may have chosen to take on the role of Delilah as the biblical story of Samson and Delilah is centralized around relationships, lust, and love, which was most of how Duffy’s relationships were established. This illustration shows that women can have authority in a relationship and can be more masculine than men. As stated multiple times, one’s belief that Duffy chose this biblical story, after subverting it into her own feminist way in order to protest the idea that women are dominant, powerful, manipulative, and influential. In the poem, Samson asks Delilah for advice on how to be more gentle, tender and caring.

Although Samson is the stronger person, he goes to her which makes Delilah more of the dominant figure. In the biblical story, Samson was deceived by Delilah's’ outer appearance which shows how women can seek authority by their beauty. The opening line of the poem gives the reader an idea of how Samson went to Delilah for advice, it shows that Delilah is an intelligent woman and that she is trustworthy to give appropriate advice. Followed by the line, “but I cannot be gentle, or loving, or tender. / I have to be strong. / What is the cure?. Delilah is knowledgeable enough to know that love is the way to “care”. The use of first person in the line “he f***** me again until I was sore”, elicits how Delilah was manipulative enough to use Samson’s weakness, love, to over dominate him by emasculating his source of strength and power - his hair. “Delilah” is one of the poems in Duffy’s anthology that makes women proud. Duffy gives Delilah a masculine figure that although women are labeled as “fragile” and “powerless”, females over dominate in a patriarchal society.

As a result, Duffy alludes to historical events that incorporate themes revolving around the ideas of relationships, love, betrayal, manipulation, and the loss of love & struggle through the utilization of a range of stylistic features such as rhetorical questions, symbolism, word choice, anaphora and first-person narrative in order to elicit the desperation and unformed thoughts of the protagonist’s perspective. Although both poems are contrasting, Duffy resonates to it and is able to evoke key ideas of feminism and feature works of protest, for instance, 1) equality between men and women, and 2) the superiority and supremacy of women in a patriarchal society.