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"Knowing who we are, and finding a way totell ourselves”: Carol Ann Duffy's

Revision of Masculinist Representations

of e!ale dentity#

Claire McEwen

‘Carol Ann Duffy is one of the freshest and bravest talents to emerge in British

 poetry — any poetry — for years', writes Eavan Boland (Duffy, !!", #over$% &his

#ourage is manifest in Duffys ability and desire to revise mas#ulinist representations

of female identity and her engagement with feminine dis#ourse, a #on#ept whi#h, as

ara )ills points out*

has moved away from viewing women as simply an oppressed

group, as vi#tims of male domination, and has tried to

formulate ways of analysing power as it manifests itself and as

it is resisted in the relations of everyday life% (p%+$

-t is these aspe#ts of Duffy's wor. that - wish to address here by e/amining the ways

in whi#h she subverts mas#ulinist assumptions and dis#ourses in the following ways*

 by giving voi#e to previously marginalised or silen#ed figures, by re0presenting

stereotypes and power relations, through #omi# reappropriation of myth and by re0

writing the #anoni#al love poem%

&he problemati# nature of representation itself, its sub1e#tivity and

unreliability, is a #entral #on#ern of Duffy's poetry% )u#h of her wor. is

written in the form of dramati# monologue whi#h serves to demonstrate

the fundamental inade2ua#y of language to re0present by undermining the

readers' e/pe#tations of traditional dis#ourses% By using #hara#ters' voi#es

rather than her own, Duffy identifies with the spea.er and #onfers

authority onto a voi#e whi#h might otherwise be silent% &he

foregrounding of this voi#e be#omes a means of demonstrating the failureof language to represent spe#ifi# aspe#ts of e/perien#e, parti#ularly

female e/perien#e% &he monologue, by giving voi#e to the previously

sub1ugated female within traditional dis#ourse, threatens mas#ulinist

#onstru#ts of female identity* the woman is given an identity of her own%

-an 3regson #omments on this when he states that*

Duffy e/plores how mas#ulinist ways of seeing determine how

women are regarded, even by themselves, and how language

determines the e/perien#es it is supposed merely to des#ribe,

how representation ma.es dummies of us all% (p%4$

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&his notion of female identity as a #onstru#ted in mas#uline dis#ourse but a##epted by

all, is a re#urring theme in Duffy's poetry% he stereotypes many of her #hara#ters in

order to foreground their in#ongruous pla#e within a modern so#iety% he also

highlights the inade2ua#ies of language as a form of e/pression in the 5a#anian sense

that 'no meaning is sustained by anything other than referen#e to another meaning'

(5a#an, p%6$% 5anguage, therefore, is an unreliable form of e/pression and, as su#h, isde#onstru#ted by Duffy through the use of dramati# monologues to represent spee#h

rather than written forms, and by her 1u/taposition of seemingly random nouns and

ad1e#tival phrases and her use of #ompound words% 5anguage is used to #reate a

tension throughout her wor., parti#ularly in her insisten#e on foregrounding the

#onstru#tion of the poem itself%

&his tension is demonstrated in '7e#ognition', from Selling Manhattan

(!+$, where Duffy e/plores the fabri#ation of female identity and the

inability of language to re0present that identity by employing a dramati#

monologue voi#ed by a despondent housewife* 

89: - love him,

through habit, but the proof 

has evaporated% ;e gets upset%

- tried to do all the essentials

 

on one trip% <oolish, yes,

 but - was weepy all morning%

=ui#he% A blond boy swung me up

in his arms and promised me the earth% (!0>$

&he woman here is #onstru#ted through a series of mas#ulinist and limiting narratives%

-nitially, she appears to have agen#y? she re#ognises that her love for her husband is

merely based on 'habit'% ;owever, her power is diminished by her sense of 

responsibility and self0depre#ation% ';e gets upset' and she #laims responsibility*  she

was 'foolish' and she 'was weepy'? it was all to do with her  hormones% &he poem is

 pun#tuated by a shopping list — ‘Claret, ‘Cheese, ‘@leene/ — to refle#t the way

her life has be#ome a monotony of domesti#ity and to underline the absurdity of the

fairytale roman#e* 'everywoman's' dream is 1u/taposed with '=ui#he'% &he #onflation

here of woman as inferior, guilty, self0depre#ating, hormonal, domesti# andunrealisti#ally romanti#, presents a redu#tive portrayal of female identity% By

foregrounding the very stereotypes that she wishes to undermine, Duffy brings to our 

attention the e/tent to whi#h they are dis#repant and outdated yet widely a##epted and

understood% At the #lose of the poem she writes*

 

89: - had to rush out,

 blind in a hot flush, and bumped

 

into an an/ious, dowdy matron

who tou#hed the #old mirror and stared at me% tared

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and said -'m sorry sorry sorry% (+06$

&he woman does not re#ognise herself% he has no sense of her own identity be#ause

it has been removed from her by mas#uline #onstru#ts of the female image% Again, she

is hormonal, indi#ated by the 'hot flush', and she is inept, banging into the mirror and

'an/ious'% &he repeated apology in the #losing line underlines the woman's subordinate position and the la#. of pun#tuation highlights her pani#.ed subservien#e%

-n 'sy#hopath', also from Selling Manhattan, Duffy uses the dramati#

monologue to present, and destabilise, the se/ual power of men over 

women*

 

 o, don't% -magine% ne thump did it, then - was on her,

giving her everything - had% a#. the 5ad, 5adies'

)an%

Easier to say Fes% 89:

he lost a tooth% - pi#.ed her up, dead slim, and slid her in%

A girl li.e that should have a paid0up solitaire and high

hopes,

 but she as.ed for it% A right well0.na#.ered outragement% ("!0G"$

Hhile the voi#e of the woman is diminished by his 'Fes', he is essentially the wea.er 

#hara#ter? he has to physi#ally abuse her to a#hieve his se/ual status as 'a#. the 5ad,

5adies' )an'% &his is further problematised by the inferen#e that he, too, is trapped

within a re#eived notion of identity? he has .illed her, but it is more important to him

that he lives up to the #onstru#ted image of a 'real man'% &he inarti#ulate final linee#hoes the in#ongruous nature of su#h assumptions* language, here, #annot des#ribe

su#h perversity% Earlier in the poem, the #hara#ter views himself in the mirror*

 

Hhen - Iip up the leather, -'m in a new s.in, - tou#h it

and love myself, sighing ome little lady's going to get lu#.y

tonight% )y breath wipes me from the loo.ing0glass% ("0>$

;is self0image is #reated by an ob1e#t, the 1a#.et, and it is this 'new s.in' that he loves,

not himself% &he sighed spee#h merges into the narrative suggesting his unwillingness

to be#ome the person he sees* his own identity is 'wiped' by his image% Duffy, perhaps,suggests that men are similarly #onstrained by mas#uline representations of their own

identity% Hhere the woman in '7e#ognition' is pun#tuated by the shopping list, the

man in 'sy#hopath' is labelled by the very title of the poem and the images of late

G4sJearly >4s popular #ulture that run through it* for e/ample, 'immy Dean' whi#h

holds #onnotations of misunderstood, violent adoles#en#e and the song 'ohnny,

7emember )e', whose lyri#s are a parodi# premonition of the womans death (p%$%

&hrough the poems setting Duffy signals the rea#tions to #onformist notions of 

identity and the, parti#ularly se/ual, awa.ening of this era% 3regson, in an analysis of 

the poem, asserts that*

&he 1u/tapositions 89: in 'sy#hopath' — se/, gratuitous#ruelty, e/#rement — suggest that what is being evo.ed is well

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 beyond the literary pale, the arti#ulation of the inarti#ulate, a

naturalisti# e/ploration of low life normally unheeded by those

who read poetry, the authenti# voi#e of the eponymous

 psy#hopath% (3regson, p%!+$

imply by writing from this perspe#tive, Duffy undermines #ertain mas#uline

assumptions% he #an ta.e on the role of the male figure, she #an #onverse in violent

and se/ually intimidating dialogue? she #an operate within both mas#uline and

feminine spheres in order to e/amine the power relations situated therein% ;owever,

3regson's analysis is somewhat redu#tive* he does not ta.e into a##ount the la#. of 

agen#y afforded to the man, or the ironi# fun#tion of the title whi#h e#hoes the

 1udgmental use of ‘delin2uent in  Rebel Without a Cause% ust as the ‘delin2uents

 behaviour is e/plained in the film, we dis#over that the ‘psy#hopath has also suffered

#hildhood trauma* ‘Dirty Ali#e fli#.ed my di#. out when - was twelve% J he 1eered

(G0>$% o, although 3regson is #orre#t to point out Duffy's appropriation of the male

voi#e, he fails to #omprehend the full impa#t of this in demonstrating the universalityof mas#uline #onstru#ts of identity for both men and women, and in re0presenting

a##epted stereotypes%

-n her #olle#tion The World's Wife  (!!!$, Duffy undermines

mas#ulinist representations of female identity by giving voi#e to the

women behind su##essful or mythi#al men% he satirises traditional

dis#ourses in order to re0present the women as the holders of power% -n

')rs Darwin', she writes*

 

+ April G 

Hent to the Koo%

- said to ;im — 

omething about that ChimpanIee over there reminds me of you%

(0"$

-ts brevity, and the alignment, through #apitalisation, of the ‘Koo, Darwin (or,

ironi#ally, 3od, indi#ated by the #apitalisation of ';im'$ and ‘ChimpanIee initiate the

ludi# 2uality of this poem, whi#h is reinfor#ed by the rhyming of '', 'Ioo' and 'you'?

'aping' the voi#e of the ChimpanIee% -n '<rau <reud', the psy#hoanalyst's wife lists, atlength, humorous #ollo2uial names for the penis and then #on#ludes*

 

89: - suppose what - mean is,

ladies, dear ladies, the average penis — not pretty9

the s2uint of its envious solitary eye 9 one's feeling of 

 pity 89: (0G$

&he #omi#al 2uality of the poem is a#hieved by the 1u/taposition of registers of 

language* these hesitantly polite final lines follow lines su#h as 'dipsti#. and wi#., the

rammer, the slammer, the rupert, J the shlong' (!04$% &he sheer number of epithets for the penis listed here foregrounds the <reudian obsession with the phallus and the way

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in whi#h the male body is so volubly e/pressed in language and literature whilst the

female body remains silen#ed and #on#ealed% &he suggestion that <rau <reud devises

vagina envy before her husband has even thought about penis envy, and the

 presentation of )rs Darwin as the real founder of the &heory of Evolution, #omi#ally

undermine and re0appropriate re#eived notions of a male dominated history and

tradition% &he use of #omedy restru#tures re#eived ideas of gender relations bytransferring authority to, and demonstrating the power of, the female voi#e%

'ygmalion's Bride', is a somewhat dar.er #omi# re0appropriation of 

myth% &he poem refers to ygmalion, a first #entury s#ulptor and the @ing

of Cyprus, who fell in love with a statue of his 'ideal woman' whi#h he

had #arved from ivory (7oom, p%!G>$% Aphrodite gave life to the statue

and ygmalion married her* the woman is, physi#ally, a mas#uline

#onstru#t only given life to satisfy the man, she is ygmalion's possession

as indi#ated by the title% &he statue, the voi#e of the poem, des#ribes the

ways in whi#h ygmalion tries to mould her, physi#ally and mentally,into the woman he desires% Again, the use of idiomati# language threatens

the man's power by #omi#ally #onfounding the readers' e/pe#tations* he

gives her 'girly things' and she 'played statue, shtum'% -n addition the

absurdity of the statue 'playing   statue' is #omi#al but also implies the

vulnerability of her ignoran#e of her own identity% ;owever, her silen#e,

rather than being a symbol of her passivity indi#ates her desire to 'play'

along? in order to avoid 'real' physi#al #onta#t, she #lings to the relative

se#urity of her e/isten#e as an ob1e#t% &he se/ual undertones of the poem,

in whi#h ygmalion's '#lammy hands' seem offensive and intrusive rather than loving, #ome to the fore when the statue #omes to life*

o - #hanged ta#.,

grew warm, li.e #andle wa/,

.issed ba#.,

was soft, was pliable,

 began to moan,

got hot, got wild,

ar#hed, #oiled, writhed, begged for his #hild,

and at the #lima/

s#reamed my head off — 

All an a#t% (6!0"!$

&he rhythm of this stanIa of the poem mirrors the progression of the orgasm? the short

words and lines, the la#. of #apitalisation and the #hanges in assonan#e all #ontribute

to the build up of tension% ;owever, in the end, it is 'all an a#t'* she has only slept with

him be#ause she had failed to be free of him by being silent, and she has fa.ed her 

orgasm% &he #losing lines* 'And haven't seen him sin#e% J imple as that' indi#ate her su##ess, she is now free of him% Lltimately, the woman has re1e#ted her #onstru#ted

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identity but she has had to prostitute herself to do so% -n her poem, Duffy re1e#ts the

literary tradition of ygmalion, as portrayed by vid and 3eorge Bernard haw

amongst others, and mo#.s their assumptions about female identity% By giving the

woman agen#y and deriding the man as a lustful fool, she re0writes the myth and re0

 presents the female figure within it%

During the run0up to the announ#ement of the new poet laureate in

!!!, there was great press spe#ulation about who would be given the

 position* Carol Ann Duffy, the 'people's poet' (Guardian, 4 )ay$ or 

Andrew )otion, the 'white male toff'% (Guardian, G eptember$% &he

3uardian as.ed*

does Carol Ann Duffy fit the bill? Hell, she's young0ish, was

 born in 3lasgow to left wing parents and brought up in the

3orbals, is highly regarded, brilliant at readings, a feminist,

#ombines wit with blea. realism, and has been des#ribed as 'the

#hara#teristi# poet of the 4s and !4s'%

So what's the obstacle? he's a lesbian% (4 )ay$

Hhether or not Duffy's se/uality influen#ed the appointment, it is #ertainly something

that informs her wor.% ;er love poems, for e/ample, are fre2uently #on#erned with

the inability of language to a##urately e/press emotions and homose/ual

relationships% Deryn 7ees0ones states*

;ighly regarded for her many love poems, Duffy has, however,spo.en of the diffi#ulties of wor.ing in a genre that, perhaps

more than any, depends traditionally on a division of power 

 between lover and beloved, male and female% 89: he refigures

hetero#entri# representations of desire both to affirm and

 problematiIe identity, throwing into 2uestion ideas of sameness

and differen#e in the relationship of the lover and the beloved,

and the inade2ua#ies of language to arti#ulate the nature of that

e/perien#e% (p%64$

&he diffi#ulty of forging a language that #an e/press any love is #ompounded by her efforts to e/press female homose/uality in her poetry* she has no literary tradition to

loo. to, only a predominantly mas#uline dis#ourse of heterose/ual love% he has to

'refigure hetero#entri# representations of desire' to fit in with her own notion of desire%

-n 'Hords, Hide ight', from The Other Country (!!4$, she writes*

 

&his is pleasurable% r shall - #ross that out and say

it is sadM -n one of the tenses - singing

an impossible song of desire that you #annot hear%

 

5a lala la% eeM ("0+$

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By foregrounding the a#t of writing, Duffy draws attention to the failure of words to

ins#ribe emotion? they themselves are representations% he #loses the poem with* '<or 

- am in love with you and thisJis what it is li.e or what it is li.e in words%' &here is a

#lear distin#tion made between the 'real' emotion and its representative% &he poem

also suggests the failure of the traditional love poem, she asserts one thing, 'this is

 pleasurable', but is not sure if that is the #orre#t way of presenting love within thetraditional, mas#uline pre#epts% 'ppenheim's Cup and au#er', from Duffy's first full

#olle#tion Standing Female Nude (!G$, attempts to in#lude lesbian love within this

tradition and does so by employing an interte/tual referen#e to ppenheim's famous

surrealist wor., e!euner en fourrurei8:? a fur #overed #up, sau#er and spoon% Duffy,

li.e ppenheim, plays on the image of women and undermines it by 1u/taposing the

domesti# with the eroti#, the surreal with the ordinary? the domesti# image of the #up

is subverted by the fur's impli#ation of pubi# hair (7ees0ones, p%6$% &he #up,

representing the female genitalia, be#omes an important symbol of the re1e#tion of 

mas#ulinist imagery? it is no longer a tool of the .it#hen, the #up implies female

se/uality and power% ;aving invo.ed ppenheim in the title, the first stanIa initiates

the relationship between the lovers in the poem but also indi#ates a dialogue between poet and artist, a #ollusion of intent and a dismissal of artisti# patriar#hy*

 

he as.ed me to lun#heon in fur% <ar from

the loud laughter of men, our se#ret life stirred%

 

- remember her eyes, the slim rope of her spine%

&his is your #up, she whispered, and this mine%

 

He dran. the sweet hot li2uid and tal.ed dirty%As she undressed me, her breasts were a mirror 

 

and there were mirrors in the bed% he said la#e

your legs around my ne#., that's right% Fes% (0$

&he formal stru#ture of the poem, four #ouplets, mirrors, li.e the women's bodies, the

"up  and the "ouple% -n addition, the internal brea.s in the lines, o##asioned by

#ommas and full stops, and reinfor#ed by the internal rhyme surrounding the

 pun#tuation, separates the 'se#ret life' from the publi# one* the lesbian relationship is,

although arti#ulated, done so surreptitiously% &he only full end0rhyme, in the se#ond#ouplet, of 'spine' and 'mine', foregrounds this se#re#y and promotes the image of 

sameness, #overtly drawing attention to the se/ and se/uality of the lovers%

ppenheim and Duffy, in art and poem, build their own female identity far from the

un#omprehending and #ontemptuous 'loud laughter of men'% &he relationship between

the two female #hara#ters is e/pli#itly se/ual, but the repeated use of pronouns in the

 poem imbues an overwhelming sense of tenderness% &he women re#ognise ea#h other 

in their physi#al similarity and gain agen#y from it, indi#ated by the #losing 'Fes'%

<emale agen#y, here, is asserted by a bond with another female artist, and the #apa#ity

to write #oherently, as opposed to 'Hords, Hide ight', about a female, se/ual

relationship%

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&he limitations of representation is a theme whi#h re#urs throughout

mu#h of Carol Ann Duffy's wor., demonstrated most effe#tively by her 

insisten#e on the use of the dramati# monologue* giving voi#e rather than

#onstru#ting images% -n this way, she #hallenges the mas#ulinist

representations of female identity that pervade histori#al and literarydis#ourse, and women's lived e/perien#e% ;er writing e/amines power 

and gender relations and a##epted stereotypes, ultimately foregrounding

the unstable and erroneous identities that they foster% As a result, Duffy

re#overs the voi#es of previously marginalised and silen#ed figures, re0

ins#ribing mythi# and histori#al dis#ourses with a vo#al female figure in

order to re1e#t the rendering of woman as an aestheti# #onstru#tion%

<inally, by re0writing the #anoni#al love poem to demonstrate its

ineffe#tiveness to e/press, and to in#lude, female homose/uality, she

undermines this traditionally male arena and #laims it as her own%

Notes

8: ppenheim, )eret, 'De1euner en <ourrure' (!6>$, )useum of )odern Art, ew

For.%

Works Cited

Duffy, Carol Ann, Standing Female Nude (5ondon* Anvil, !G$%

 ——, Selling Manhattan (5ondon* Anvil, !+$%

 ——, The Other Country (5ondon* Anvil, !!4$%

 ——, Sele"ted #oems (5ondon* enguin, !!"$%

 ——, The World$s Wife (5ondon* i#ador, !!!$%

3regson, -an, 'Carol Ann Duffy* )onologue as Dialogue' in

Contemporary #oetry and #ostmodernism% ialogue and 

 &strangement (Basingsto.e* )a#)illan, !!>$%

5a#an, a#2ues, '&he -nsisten#e of the 5etter in the Ln#ons#ious' inDavid 5odge, (ed%$,  Modern Criti"ism and Theory% Reader 

(5ondon* 5ongman, !$%

)ills, ara, is"ourse (5ondon* 7outledge, !!+$%

‘ass otes, Guardian G(, 4 )ay !!!, p%6%

7oom, Adrian, (ed%$,  )rewer's i"tionary of #hrase and Fable

(5ondon* Cassel N Co, 44$%

Oiner, @atharine, ')etre )aid', Guardian Wee*end , G eptember 

!!!, pp%40>%

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