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Summary The Diet poem analysis
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the diet poem analysis and annotations
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Students However, this is also a cliched, idiom that may also alertthe reader to its irony. The “dream” has connotations of
unreality. The glibness hints at possible danger.
The Diet
The asyndetic list, without a The short abrupt sentence is positive and lulls
definite or indefinite article, the reader into a feeling of optimism
introduces the theme of
restriction. The pace increases
The diet worked like a dream. No sugar, The pace increases to match
to breathlessness and
this extreme diet, the
introduces the idea of extreme Salt, diary, fat, protein, starch or alcohol.
and drastic starvation. The compressed phrases
items listed limit the food the By the end of week one, she was half a stone reinforcing the idea of the
woman can have to nothing. speed of her weight loss.
Shy of ten and shrinking, skipping breakfast,
Lunch, dinner, thinner; a fortnight in, she was
The internal rhyme; “dinner,
The breathless pace is thinner” creates a note of wry
Eight stone; by the end of the month, she was skin
maintained. In a few short lines humour. The description
the woman has lost several And bone.
“shrinking” reinforces this. Live
stone, and is “skin and bone” people lose weight, but
within an improbable month. inanimate things “shrink”. This
The use of ironic cliche is is the first hint of her spiritual
repeated; the opening “worked diminution and a tragic eating
like a dream” is matched by disorder
“skin and bone”.
The poem begins by placing ‘The Diet’ as the central focus, Duffy instantly drawing
Duffy has now established the
attention to the extreme diet. The use of asyndeton following this diet exposes the
tone; choppy, compressed
ridiculous nature of the fasting, the woman cutting out essentially everything,
sentences, rapid pace, ‘sugar, salt, dairy, fat, protein, starch’ covering every single food group. The use of
asyndetic listings and irony asyndeton within this list allows for the list to flow quickly, Duffy moving through
convey the seriousness of the food groups as if they were insignificant, reflecting the woman’s attitude towards
story. food.
The internal rhyme furthers the speed of the meter, emblematic of the quick weight
loss the woman is going through. Linking ‘dinner, thinner’ through this internal
rhyme signals that the skipping of meals is linked to the shrinking size of the
woman. Yet, the woman takes this too far, fasting until she is ‘skin and bone’ by the
end of the stanza. The first stanza takes away all weight that is humanly possible,
with the rest of the poem sinking into unrealistic exaggeration.
Students
, Students
She starved on, stayed in, stared in
The mirror, svelter, slimmer. The last apple
Aged in the fruit bowl, untouched. The skimmed milk The rhythmic first line gives this a
Soured in the fringe, unsupped. Her skeleton preened nursery-rhyme feel. There is
another asyndetic list. Also the
Under its tight flesh dress. She was all eyes, sibilant alliterative “s” could
The lone apple represents
the isolaton of the woman. All cheekbones, had guns for hips. Not a stitch represent speed, or maybe
There are echoes of contempt for the person she
In the wardrobe fitted.
poisoned fruit in fairy-tales was.
and, going back further, the The description of her thinness is
This, like the apple, is diet food which she is
bibical story of the already repulsive. The woman has no
rejecting. She is clearly on the way to self
temptation of Eve. identity of her own now, but instead
starvation. Note the continued sibilant “s"s,
as if the hissing serpent in the Garden of she is represented by her skeleton,
We may question if the
Eden has no effect on her. her hollow eyes, cheekbones —
starving woman is proud
examples of synecdoche.
that she has left the last
apple; if resisting the The reference to “guns for hips”
temptation that entrapped suggests visually the sharp, hard
the biblical Eve she has shape of weapons but, more than
attained superiority and that, imply her aggression and anger.
power that other women No doubt, by now, those around her
don’t possess. were concerned but she was rejecting
them.
The stanza ends with another ironic
cliche, “not a stitch” meaning no
clothes whatsoever.
The second stanza of ‘The Diet’ further the ‘slimmer’ journey of the dieting woman.
She morphs into a lesser human, a mere ‘skeleton’ of the past. She turns into just
bones, ‘cheekbones, had guns for hips’, Duffy showing the process of wasting away.
The use of sibilance across ‘starved on, stayed in, stared in’ creates a cutting sound
that begins the second stanza. This harsh use of sibilance is emblematic of the brutal
impact the diet is having on the woman’s body, the sound cutting through the poem
as the diet cuts through the woman’s weight.
Students
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