Men And Women In The World's Wife By Carol Ann Duffy

Zhina Qadir Saeed Relationship between Men and Women

The relationships between men and women in the World’s Wife by Carol Ann Duffy are problematic. Through Duffy’s poems we get to see the deeper reasons for why these relationships are failing. We also get to see the struggles that women face when they are in a male dominated relationship. As the title of the book states, The World’s Wife, tells stories of women in the past from all over the world where their voice wasn’t heard and they were overshadowed by male figures who were usually their husbands. Some of the poems are directly aimed at women as if she is speaking to them like in the poem Eurydice, she says “Girls, I was dead and down.” In other poems, we see that

Through the poem Mrs Beast, Duffy is trying to show us the unfairness women face and the amount of hate and criticism they get even when they act the same way as men. She is also trying to show men how it feels like if they are treated the same way they treat women. Men start mistreating women when the society considers it “normal or fine” to act a certain way against women because of their biology. Women shouldn’t be treated in an unequal way because of their biology. As Avril Horner states, Duffy is trying to convey the idea of emotional pluralism which is that the biology of a person doesn’t determine their characteristics and who they are, but this ideology is socially constructed (Horner 107). In most of the poems written by Duffy she is trying to convey how in the past it wasn’t normal when a women was a writer but when men write they get praised for it. An example of this is in the poem Eurydice, Duffy states “Big O was the boy. Legendary…But the Gods are like publishers, usually

The women in the poems are struggling to get their voice heard and get some power, it’s either because their husband is in the limelight or he is more known and famous compared to her. Usually when the men are more powerful and praised by society they become hugely egotistic. This results in the abuse of their “power” and they never consider what the women wants. An example of such character is Orpheus, he was selfish for not considering his wife’s feelings. Duffy states in the poem “Like it or not, I must follow him back to our life… to be trapped in his…” She clearly doesn’t want to go with him because she feels trapped but her husband never asked her if she wants to come. Orpheus doesn’t care about her opinion, he just wants her back to himself for his own amusement. Eurydice uses his ego against him by saying In the verse “Orpheus, your poem’s a masterpiece… He was smiling modestly, when he turned…” This shows when it’s about him he would turn and try to spark a conversation with her, but if it was something else he wouldn’t have.

In the poem Pygmalion’s bride, Pygmalion wants and expects an ideal women which is Galatea, but he doesn’t consider how she really is or what she wants. Duffy is trying to tell women who are in a relationship with a man that they shouldn’t lose their identity. Women shouldn’t men to control them and make them feel that they aren’t good