Analysis Of The World's Wife By Carol Ann Duffy

The World’s Wife is a collection of poems written by Scottish poet Carol Ann Duffy. In these poems, Duffy retells stories, fairy tails and greek mythologies through women’s perspective by inserting feminist themes and focusing on gender inequality, and giving women a larger and a more memorable role. The classic version of those stories give men the heroic roles, and the female characters blend into the background as cliche roles like damsel in distress, jealous wife, controlling mother, demanding lover and evil and villainous roles that use their sexuality to lure men and divert them from their heroic quests.

Duffy portrays masculinity and femininity in The World’s Wife in a very unconventional and honest way that not many people could do. If we look at the poems individually, they each tell a different story. But together, it’s the story of her life and the obstacles she has faced in her journey of self discovery. These poems stand up for every women who lost her voice at some point, whom she knows wouldn 't have one if she doesn 't speak up. Because when reading the 2 original stories, not everyone would examine them and look deep enough to see beyond what they see.

In the original story Orpheus and Eurydice, Eurydice dies and goes to the underworld. Her partner Orpheus that is a musician and a poet charms everyone with his beautiful poem at the gate of the underworld to get in and take Eurydice back. The queen and king of the underworld agree only if he doesn 't look