A World's Wife Carol Ann Duffy Summary

Fairy Tales and the Modern World in the Context of ‘A World’s Wife’ by Carol Ann Duffy
Fairy tales have been with us for the longest time. Some of the earliest were written in a Neapolitan dialect in Italy in the early 17th century. Later, the Brothers Grimm and others such as Hans Christian Anderson made the original, overtly sexual and violent fairy tales more respectable, becoming the ones that we all know today. (SLIDE 2)
What is it, one might wonder, that drives us to read and promote fairy tales through the annals of time? I mean, children lost in woods and found by a witch who fattens them up to eat them in ‘Hansel and Gretel’ isn’t exactly the kind of story, rationally speaking that one should enjoy listening to and telling. Nor is the idea of wolves being chopped open by

Her retelling involves her own personal experience. The poem is partly autobiographical and deals with her relationship with the man Adrian Henry, himself a poet. The relation began when she was 16, and he was 39. Considering how young Little Red Cap is, and the strong sexual undertones of the poem one cannot help but see the relation. Perhaps that is why the poem so strongly embodies the feelings of liberty and freedom that it evokes. These dramatic monologues, with the elements of realism, contribute greatly to modern understanding. An example of the strong feelings is illustrated in the description of the wolf, which implies anthropomorphist ideas, as mentioned above. This is seen by the line ‘In his wolfy drawl, a paperback in his hairy paw, red wine staining his bearded jaw’. The educated wolf, and the allure of a better life, all depicted through the lens of a savage creature is entirely appropriate, and the fact that he is a poet like Duffy’s former lover illustrates the importance of context and personal contribution in interpretation. That is also why Duffy’s poetry rings out more than its counterparts.