Carol Ann Duffy's "Mrs Lazarus"

Carol Ann Duffy’s “Mrs Lazarus”

Context

Duffy’s poem “Mrs Lazarus” offers a retelling of the biblical story of Lazarus from the perspective of Lazarus’s widow. In John 11 in the Bible, Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead, restoring him to his grieving sisters, Magdalene and Martha, leaving the tomb in his shroud.

In Duffy’s poem, it is the wife, Mrs Lazarus, who is grieving. She tells us how she had grieved for her dead husband as time passes and he becomes a memory. After enough time has healed her emotional wounds, she begins a new life with a schoolteacher, only to discover that Lazarus has risen from his grave.

The poem consists of eight five-line stanzas (cinquets). There is no consistent rhyme pattern or meter.

I had grieved. I had wept for a night and a day

over my loss, ripped the cloth I was married in

from my breasts, howled, shrieked, clawed

at the burial stones until my hands bled, retched

his name over and over again, dead, dead.

What does the parallel use of the past perfect indicate about the speaker? Is she still grieving?

Have you noticed the semantic field of death and funerals? What effect does this have?

This is a traditional Hebrew mourning tradition of ripping one’s garments and exists in other parts of the bible.

Duffy uses a tricolon and asyndeton, as well as very striking visual imagery? What impact does this have? What does the visual imagery evoke? What is emphasised by the asyndeton, which removes conjunctions? Is the removal of conjunctions in harmony with the content?

Do the sounds of these words, whether onomatopoeia or consonance, add to the content? How?

How is the speaker characterised in this stanza after the death of her husband?

For those who know the true tale of Lazarus, might this line have any other significance other than emphasising the speaker’s pain?

Gone home. Gutted the place. Slept in a single cot,

widow, one empty glove, white femur

in the dust, half. Stuffed dark suits

into black bags, shuffled in a dead man's shoes,

noosed the double knot of a tie around my bare neck,

Does the alliteration of the hard /g/ or the /s/ sound have any particular effect in this line? What about the caesura and short sentence structures? What about the alliteration of the /w/ sound on the second line?

How do these symbols add to the content of the poem in this context?

Does this use of caesura or the grammatically incorrect (and seemingly incomplete “..., half.” have any particular effect within the context?

Duffy uses anachronisms, which is a literary device that places someone or something associated with a particular time in history in the wrong time period. Suits and black bags wouldn’t have existed at the time, but Duffy includes these as humorous cliches.

Does the sibilance have any particular effect in the context?

How is the speaker characterised by wearing her dead husband’s shoes? Is there any symbolic significance to this?

This final line implies suicidal ideations.

gaunt nun in the mirror, touching herself. I learnt

the Stations of Bereavement, the icon of my face

in each bleak frame; but all those months

he was going away from me, dwindling

to the shrunk size of a snapshot, going,

The metaphor implies what about the speaker? What are the characteristics of nuns? Additionally, how is the image emphasised by the word “gaunt”?

The ‘Stations of Bereavement’ are an allusion to the Stations of the Cross, 14 icons which depict Jesus on the way to his crucifixion. Here it is Mrs Lazarus's face which is the icon in each frame. The long vowels and monosyllables ‘in each bleak frame’ have a mournful, dragging sound.

What is happening to the memory of the speaker’s dead husband?

Another anachronism! There were no photos when Jesus was around. What impact does this metaphor have?

going. Till his name was no longer a certain spell

for his face. The last hair on his head

floated out from a book. His scent went from the house.

The will was read. See, he was vanishing

to the small zero held by the gold of my ring.

The enjambment from the previous stanza, repeating the word “going” almost evokes the idea of an echo, or something travelling further away as it leaves.

Does the caesura have an effect here?

What is implied by this metaphor? What about this visual imagery? Or this olfactory imagery?

Does this interjection have any particular impact?

What is achieved by associating the round wedding ring to a zero? The ring is usually a symbol for eternity, but what does zero have connotations with?

Then he was gone. Then he was legend, language;

my arm on the arm of the schoolteacher-the shock

of a man's strength under the sleeve of his coat-

along the hedgerows. But I was faithful

for as long as it took. Until he was memory.

Is there any effect found in the anaphora of “then he was”?

What about the choices of “legend” and “language”? What is meant by this? Is this added to by the use of alliteration?

Is there any effect in Duffy selecting a schoolteacher for the speaker’s new husband? What are the connotations with teachers?

How is the speaker characterised here?

Is there anything that could be said about the use of enjambment on this line in particular?

So I could stand that evening in the field

in a shawl of fine air, healed, able

to watch the edge of the moon occur to the sky

and a hare thump from a hedge; then notice

the village men running towards me, shouting,

How has the tone shifted? How has the speaker changed?

What is achieved via this visual imagery?

What is evoked from this visual imagery? Is there any mood created through the image of “men running towards” the speaker and “shouting”?

behind them the women and children, barking dogs,

and I knew. I knew by the sly light

on the blacksmith's face, the shrill eyes

of the barmaid, the sudden hands bearing me

into the hot tang of the crowd parting before me.

Is there any importance about the men being first, followed by women and children?

How does the repetition here add to the poem?

What is implied by the looks on these people’s faces?

What is evoked through this imagery?

He lived. I saw the horror on his face.

I heard his mother's crazy song. I breathed

his stench; my bridegroom in his rotting shroud,

moist and dishevelled from the grave's slack chew,

croaking his cuckold name, disinherited, out of his time.

How does the short sentence structure add to the poem? How does the speaker feel?

Lazarus has “horror on his face,” his mother has gone mad, and he smells awful, wearing a “rotting shroud,

moist and dishevelled.” In other words, he has decomposed a little. What is the mood created in these lines? Is it a happy reunion or not? How might this ending comment on the themes of grief?

The grave, metonymic of death, has a “slack” or not very tight “chew.” What is suggested through this?

How does the consonance of the hard /k/ sound add to the tone and mood?

How does the lexica choice of “croaking” add to the depiction of Lazarus? Also, a “cuckold” is the husband of an adulterous wife. What kind of ending does the poem have and why is this important? Is it happy for anyone?

There are plentiful anachronisms in this poem, and now Duffy implies that Lazarus himself is “out of his time.” What is suggested here?