Compare the methods both poets use to explore the representaton of the
female body
The poems ‘EAT ME’ and ‘The Map-Woman’ both use the female body as a topic materr
they are not only similar in this way, but also share similar ways of their way of
demonstratng societal views, and also stereotypes that women are burdened with.
However, they then difer by the speakers point of view, and how this diference changes
the way each female is viewed.
The methods and techniques that are used in ‘EAT ME’ by Agbabi are shown through
examples such as the second tercet, where – when told to eat a white iced cake with pink
leters, a way of stereotyping women in today’s society – ‘sshe ate, did what sshe was told.
Didn’t even taste it’r she uses this minor sentence at the end to slow the verse down, and to
imply that the narrator isn’t enjoying what she’s being commanded to do. This contrasts to
the first stanza’s tone, which is upbeat and almost celebratory at a glance, by being darker
and uncertain – much like the relatonship between the man and the narrator. The use of
these female rhymes and dark tone are used in ‘The Map-Woman’r the first tercet opens
with a metaphor that extends throughout the poem, suggestng how this woman has been
afected by something since childhood. Dufy also shows this dark tone by using syndetc
repetton in the form of a list of clothing that the woman uses to cover herself – this
indicates to the reader that she doesn’t ‘enjoy’ or appreciate herself much like the woman
in ‘EAT ME’r Dufy also uses caesura afer this list to stop the fow and change the tone
further into something less safe than the first half of the stanza. Both of these poets use
methods such as this one to show how objectfied the female body is, and how inferior
women are in the eyes of society. However, both poems show that the women gain control
of their bodies: ‘EAT ME’ uses consistent water and liquid imagery to suggest a change of
power from the man to the woman by how ‘he drowned’ and how ‘sshe drowned his dying
sentence out’, and also by how the pronouns changed from ‘he’ and ‘him’ to ‘I’ which
insinuates that she is now dominatng himr in ‘The Map-Woman’ this is shown through how
her taking of her skin, and leaving it behind to drive away and ‘seat up the miles’.
This leads on to how women and the female body are represented in each poemr ‘EAT ME’
uses syntactcal parallelism to show the emotonal state of the woman, and how she
believes she is ‘too fat to leave’ or ‘too fat’ to use it as ‘chubby, cuddly, big-built’ as a
euphemism. This implies that the stereotypical female thoughts on weight include thinking
in this way, and how that leads to insecurity. In comparison, ‘The Map-Woman’ shows a
similar aspect of female thoughts: ‘her baby-blue eyes unsure as they looked at themselves.
But her body was certain,’ suggests that what she sees is not what is actually there, and how
factors such as media have infuenced women to not believe their eyesr once again, the
woman ‘piled on’ diferent types of layers and covers to hide and change herself to possibly
fit a stereotype or society view – together these poets imply that women are expected to
look a certain way, and neither of the women in these poems fit that image. This is shown
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