Carol Ann Duffy's Poetry

How do Phillip Larkin and Carol Ann Duffy write about women in their poems?

Both Carol Ann Duffy and Phillip Larkin use ambiguity and emotive language in their poetry to express their attitudes towards women. The poets utilize many congruent and contradictory techniques in the way they explore the theme of women which can be showed in Larkin’s Collection ‘’Whitsun wedding (1964)‘’ and Duffy’s collection ‘’Mean Time(1993)’’.The poems I chose from both poet’ collection coevals the theme of women in detail which I analyse in detail.

The poem Sunny Prestatyn by Philip Larkin mainly focuses on the violence and coercion against women in the society. The poem convenes with a quotation from an advert, ‘’Come to Sunny Prestatyn’ with an alluring girl on the poster. Larkin describes what the poster looks like originally by using low frequency lexis ‘’tautened white satin’’ in the first stanza which symbolises the innocence and the immaculateness of the poster. The use of Larkin’s language begins to change at the borderline of that stanza, he uses vernacular words such as ‘’ thighs and breast lifting arms’’ to focus on the sexuality of the lady. The prosodic tone develops in the second stanza as Larkin’s phraseology becomes vulgar and ill-favoured as he reveals what happened to the poster.

Larkin uses idiom in the third stanza ‘’slapped up in March’’ to create constriction which ultimately aggravates a sympathetic reaction from the audience. The untarnished face of the lady has been annihilated. Larkin presented the lady as a sexual object and uses sarcasm to exaggerate in the poem, Larkin concludes in the final stanza ‘’she was too good for this life’’ he compares the poster to the real life of a woman. A woman’s Childhood is innocent...

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...erfect. Duffy uses paralinguistic to explain the incident ‘’told me to fuck off’’ An accident leads to chaos and embarrassment for the mother, a male telling a female off shows how dominant the male are in society.’’ My mother mute shame’’ this also indicates the lack of initiative, Duffy uses sensory language and juxtaposition at the end of the stanza ’the taste of soap’’ to show the extent of the astounding sense of embarrassment which epitomizes the way women were wrapped up in their own world. Both poets share the idea that women are unrealistic but due to their gender it’s been showed in a different understanding, In Litany Duffy portrays women as being stereotyped and controlled by a male dominated society which leads them to be untrue and in contrast in Large Cool Store Larkin portrays women as being deluded because they are naturally unreal and not normal.