Rukhsar yazmin
Examine the view that Duffy presents women as dangerous and destructive in the
collection.
You must refer to at least two poems in your answer.
In The Feminine Gospels, Duffy often presents the women within these poems as isolated
individuals who are suffering with their own grievances and problems. Whether it be
oppression through feminine expectations or their own self destructive behaviour resulted
by conformity, these women are repeatedly seen to spiral into damaging and often
dangerous cycles. However, it can’t be argued that all poems within the collection represent
dangerous and destructive women as many convey the journey of women becoming
empowered and breaking through the ‘glass ceilings’ of society through, perhaps
unconventional yet, liberating ways. There is also a sense of victimhood and powerlessness,
Duffy presents these women as having a lack of control.
Duffy has been seen to often present female conformity to societies standards as a catalyst
for their own self destruction and that women are used by society for their own desires and
agendas. This is evidently seen in Duffy’s poem ‘Work’, which conveys the devastation of
Mother nature through her own acts of conforming and maintaining an industrialised and
capitalist society at the expense of herself. This is clearly seen in the change in stanzas from
pre- industrial living to a modern and industrialised society that is dependant on ever
growing consumerism and the work of the women in the economy. The listing of ‘ to feed
two, she worked outside, sewed seeds, watered, threshed, scythed, gathered barley, wheat,
corn” conveys the subjugation of women through this long list of laboured tasks but also
presents the world to be agricultural, and still dependant on natural resources. However,
the line of ‘to feed two’ conveys the population growth, an indication to the upcoming
modernisation of society and the triggering of exponential growth. This is seen in stanza 4, ‘
oil, metal, noise, machines’, the listing conveys the mechanical consumption of society
through the introduction of factories and it also parallels her own nature of work to that of a
machine, conveying the overwhelming amount of work that she is enduring, this is further
emphasised by the enjambment seen in the stanzas, indicating a sense of a never ending,
fast paced cycle.
Furthermore, mother nature is personified through the line ‘mother to millions now’, and is
seen to be breaking her own morals and destroying Earth and herself to appease her
‘children’. The line ‘ felled trees, grazed beef, sold cheap fast food’ conveys the immense
destruction of the world through consumerism through acts such as deforestation, and the
dangerous lengths that mother nature will go to in order for her ‘offspring to swell’, even it
means betraying herself. Marxists Feminists would view this never ending dangerous cycle
of work as the exploitation of women for the benefit of Capitalism as women may be
victims, as seen in the repetition ‘to feed more, more’, but they are also contributors too. By
the end of the poem, Mother nature is a shadow of her former self and the consequences of
her conformity is seen in not only the deterioration of Earth but her own deterioration. This
is presented in the final line, ‘ sickened, died, lay in a grave, worked to the bone, her fingers
twenty four seven.” The line conveys the doom of the Earth, parallel to the doom of Mother
nature who has suffered for her children and in the end the only result was destruction.
Furthermore, the juxtaposition from the opening stanza in the aphorism ‘life was a dream’
Examine the view that Duffy presents women as dangerous and destructive in the
collection.
You must refer to at least two poems in your answer.
In The Feminine Gospels, Duffy often presents the women within these poems as isolated
individuals who are suffering with their own grievances and problems. Whether it be
oppression through feminine expectations or their own self destructive behaviour resulted
by conformity, these women are repeatedly seen to spiral into damaging and often
dangerous cycles. However, it can’t be argued that all poems within the collection represent
dangerous and destructive women as many convey the journey of women becoming
empowered and breaking through the ‘glass ceilings’ of society through, perhaps
unconventional yet, liberating ways. There is also a sense of victimhood and powerlessness,
Duffy presents these women as having a lack of control.
Duffy has been seen to often present female conformity to societies standards as a catalyst
for their own self destruction and that women are used by society for their own desires and
agendas. This is evidently seen in Duffy’s poem ‘Work’, which conveys the devastation of
Mother nature through her own acts of conforming and maintaining an industrialised and
capitalist society at the expense of herself. This is clearly seen in the change in stanzas from
pre- industrial living to a modern and industrialised society that is dependant on ever
growing consumerism and the work of the women in the economy. The listing of ‘ to feed
two, she worked outside, sewed seeds, watered, threshed, scythed, gathered barley, wheat,
corn” conveys the subjugation of women through this long list of laboured tasks but also
presents the world to be agricultural, and still dependant on natural resources. However,
the line of ‘to feed two’ conveys the population growth, an indication to the upcoming
modernisation of society and the triggering of exponential growth. This is seen in stanza 4, ‘
oil, metal, noise, machines’, the listing conveys the mechanical consumption of society
through the introduction of factories and it also parallels her own nature of work to that of a
machine, conveying the overwhelming amount of work that she is enduring, this is further
emphasised by the enjambment seen in the stanzas, indicating a sense of a never ending,
fast paced cycle.
Furthermore, mother nature is personified through the line ‘mother to millions now’, and is
seen to be breaking her own morals and destroying Earth and herself to appease her
‘children’. The line ‘ felled trees, grazed beef, sold cheap fast food’ conveys the immense
destruction of the world through consumerism through acts such as deforestation, and the
dangerous lengths that mother nature will go to in order for her ‘offspring to swell’, even it
means betraying herself. Marxists Feminists would view this never ending dangerous cycle
of work as the exploitation of women for the benefit of Capitalism as women may be
victims, as seen in the repetition ‘to feed more, more’, but they are also contributors too. By
the end of the poem, Mother nature is a shadow of her former self and the consequences of
her conformity is seen in not only the deterioration of Earth but her own deterioration. This
is presented in the final line, ‘ sickened, died, lay in a grave, worked to the bone, her fingers
twenty four seven.” The line conveys the doom of the Earth, parallel to the doom of Mother
nature who has suffered for her children and in the end the only result was destruction.
Furthermore, the juxtaposition from the opening stanza in the aphorism ‘life was a dream’
