Carol Ann Duffy seems to ask political/feminist questions in the following poems and believes women to be partly responsible for mass production, industrialisation and technology. The women in Duffy’s poems are seen as obsessive (The Diet, Work) and not in control (the woman who shopped). All three poems seem to combine aspects of femininity into one character such as gluttony, self-harm/losing oneself and seek to change themselves in some way. It seems Duffy has a major conflict with herself and the female population in general.Everyone seems to want to be the next top model or superstar.
These cravings and affections are the downfall of women these days. They are unable to control themselves of anything going on in the media or the papers and relentlessly dive in to get involved. The main problem with women is that they struggle to realise their identity and try to conform to a certain audience to gain that identity. It seems Duffy has a major distaste for market capitalism and its effect on women. Duffy is almost blaming women for global capitalism as much as they are the victims of it.Duffy explores these themes really well in the diet about an adolescent female who is struggling with her identity and weight issues.
“She could fly on the wind” this line shows that she is easily led astray by people and what they say. In other words the woman is very sensitive. “She stayed near people” is conformity to society. Anorexia and self-deterioration are also a theme in this poem as Duffy says “she had guns for hips” and “floated into the barman’s eye”. These lines show that Anorexia is life-threatening and is used as a minor metaphor.The tone of the poem is almost as if Duffy is mocking women and their helplessness.
She uses each stanza to show how this woman literally vanishes into another woman’s body so not only does she lose her identity but becomes someone else entirely. There are a number of sound devices that Duffy uses throughout The Diet such as alliteration (“She starved on, stayed in, and stared in the mirror, svelter, slimmer”. This has an emphasis on being skinny and has a major effect on the reader to show that she is losing herself. The tone used is also very sharp and direct.A similar adjacent rhyme is used in the first stanza of the woman who shopped (“Went out with a silver shilling, willing”).
Enumeration is used in the seventh stanza (“carrots, peas, courgettes, potatoes, gravy and meat. Then it was stilton, roquefort, weisslacker-kase, gex; it was smoked salmon, with scrambled eggs, hot boiled ham, plum flan, frogs‘legs”). Duffy connects this loss of control In the woman who shopped as the second and third stanzas summarize this “saved up a pound, a fiver, a tenner” and “applied for a job for the wage and the bonus, blew it on clothes”.The seventh stanza of work also connects to the previous two “She flogged TV’s, designed PC’s, ripped CD’s, burned DVD’s, there was no stopping her. She slogged night and day at internet shopping”.
Duffy also uses internal rhyming to show the emphasis on being skinny “(“shrinking, skiping” “dinner, thinner” “chap of a lip”). The lines “kipped in the chap of a lip,” “like a germ” “Seed small” “wallowed/ in mud under fingernails” “a slip of a girl, shadow” shows that she has a weak personality and is conforming to society.The use of hyperbole in the diet “the avalanche munch of food,” “she started to grow smaller – child-sized, doll-sized, the height of a thimble” and “the width of a stick” shows her personality is becoming smaller and she is going from one extreme transition of identity to another. Duffy is almost blaming women for global capitalism as much as they are the victims of it. Duffy’s use of enjambment throughout feminine gospels is very apparent, especially in the diet and the woman who shopped.
Some examples are the sixth stanza of the woman who shopped “tapping her credit card all night, ordering swimming pools, caravans, saunas” And in the fourth stanza of the diet – “An empty beer bottle rolled in the gutter”. Throughout Feminine Gospels there is a sense of failure in women as a general population. They are very delicate creatures and Duffy treats them this way. A lot of women are misunderstood and are treated in negative ways since the beginning of time.
Beauty, power and perfection in Duffy’s poems are seen as tragedy and downfall.It is these traits that killed great iconic women such as Cleopatra, Marilyn Munroe and Helen of Troy who all shared similar fates. The values that have been labeled “feminine” – love, compassion, cooperation, patience – are very badly needed in giving birth to and nurturing a new era of greater peace and justice in human society. It would be unfortunate if they were forsaken by women because they seem dysfunctional to competition in a “masculine” world. Now, more than ever, these are the values that need to be asserted by men and women in creating a new world order.
