Carol Ann Duffy's "Medusa"

Carol Ann Duffy’s “Medusa”

Context

Duffy’s poem “Medusa” offers a retelling of the Greek myth of Medusa. In the original myth, Medusa was a nymph whose beauty attracted the sea god Poseidon. In one version, Medusa, who vowed to remain a virgin, falls in love with Posiedon, marries him, and consulates the marriage in the sacred temple of Athena. Athena, angry with Medusa, then transforms Medusa into a Gorgon- a winged female monster with snakes for hair, whose stare turns people to stone. However, Duffy presents a different reason for Medusa’s transformation: in sorrow, she thinks of her status as a wife and has suspicions of her husband’s loyalty and love. She tells how the seed of doubt grows until she is consumed with jealousy and becomes monstrous (with the power to turn all living things to stone). She looks at herself in the mirror and despairs, and then confronts her husband when he returns home.

The poem is a dramatic monologue, like many of the poem’s in Duffy’s collection. There are seven stanzas, with most being sestets (6 lines). The poem is written in free verse with no consistent rhyme or meter.

A suspicion, a doubt, a jealousy

grew in my mind,

which turned the hairs on my head to filthy snakes

as though my thoughts

hissed and spat on my scalp.

The poem begins with a semantic field of jealousy via tricolon and asyndeton. What effect do these devices have? Think about the theme of envy being in harmony with the structure.

What effect do these thoughts being personified as growing have?

Are there any connections between snakes and the concept of jealousy? What is achieved through the diction of “filthy” or the alliteration of the /h/ sound?

Thoughts are personified as snakes “hiss[ing] and “[spitting]”. What is the effect of this? Is there any significance to the sibilant consonance?

My bride’s breath soured, stank

in the grey bags of my lungs.

I’m foul mouthed now, foul tongued,

yellow fanged.

There are bullet tears in my eyes.

Are you terrified?

Medusa is depicted as being a bride in this poem, changing the original story. What impact does the alliteration of the plosive /b/ sound have?

What mood does this olfactory imagery evoke? Do these terms create a semantic field of anything? And how does the sibilance add to the poem?

What impact does the speaker have in describing her lungs as “grey bags”? What might this imply or elicit?

What does the use of “now” suggest about the speaker? Did she always look like this?

What does “yellow tanged”, talking of her teeth, evoke? What might this have connotations with? What other different meanings can “foul mouthed” have? Is there any significance in the anaphora of “foul”?

Describing her tears as “bullet[s]” is a metaphor. What does this imply?

This stanza ends with a rhetorical question, which does not require an answer. What is the effect of this, given the context (Medusa turns those she looks at into stone).

Be terrified.

It’s you I love,

perfect man, Greek God, my own;

but I know you’ll go, betray me, stray

from home.

So better be for me if you were stone.

However, Medusa answers the question from the previous stanza at the beginning of this. Asking a question and then answering it is known as hypophora. What effect does this have in relation to her character?

The speaker puts “you”, the man about which she speaks, before herself (“I”). How does this characterize her?

Talking about Posiedon, presumably, the speaker (Medusa) uses the similar tricolon and asyndeton like the first line. Does this have any particular effect or is there any association between this and the first line?

What impact does the use of enjambment have in this context? Think about the fact that “home” is separated from the earlier line.

Is there any particular effect of the alliteration of the plosive /b/ in “better be”? Also, the speaker acknowledges the curse of Medusa in the Greek myth. How is she characterised in that she’d rather the man be lifeless stone than alive but straying?

Is there any particular effect in rhyming “own”, “home”, and “stone”?

I glanced at a buzzing bee,

a dull grey pebble fell

to the ground.

I glanced at a singing bird,

a handful of dusty gravel

spattered down.

Compare the diction in “glanced”, “looked” (in the next stanza), and “stared” (in the stanza after that). How does this progression characterise Medusa?

Have you heard of the phrase ‘the birds and the bees’? What does it mean? Why is it important that these animals are the first to turn to stone?

The words in blue create a semantic field of stone. What does this imply?

Is there any significance in the juxtaposition of “buzzing” and “singing” with “dull grey” and “dusty”? What do these transformations emphasise?

I looked at a ginger cat,

a housebrick

shattered a bowl of milk.

I looked at a snuffling pig,

a boulder rolled

in a heap of shit.

Compare the diction in “glanced” (in the previous stanza), “looked”,, and “stared” (in the stanza after that). How does this progression characterise Medusa?

Is there any humour in turning the cat into “a housebrick”? What are the connotations with house cats, and what does turning one into stone imply?

What effect does the lexical choice of “shattered” have?

What could “a bowl of milk”, a white liquid associated with maternity, breaking symbolise?

Think about the animals Medusa is gradually turning to stone. How would you describe the chronological change in them? How does this characterise Medusa?

Is there any significant effect created in the last line of this stanza, describing the pig as not being “a boulder rolled / in a heap of shit”?

I stared in the mirror.

Love gone bad

showed me a Gorgon.

I stared at a dragon.

Fire spewed

from the mouth of a mountain.

Compare the diction in “glanced” (in the fourth stanza), “looked” (in the previous stanza), and “stared” here. How does this progression characterise Medusa?

In some versions of the story, Medusa catches a glimpse of herself and turns to stone. Could the speaker of Duffy’s poem be intentionally trying to do this? What is the tone of this poem and how might this line evoke the idea of suicide?

How does this characterise Medusa?

What does Medusa referring to herself as a dragon imply? What could this metaphor suggest?

What emotion does fire have connotations with?

Is there any particular effect in the lexical choice of “spewed”? What does it evoke?

What effect does the alliteration of the /m/ sound have here? In comparing herself to a volcano, what is Medusa implying?

And here you come

with a shield for a heart

and a sword for a tongue

and your girls, your girls.

Wasn’t I beautiful

Wasn’t I fragrant and young?

Look at me now.

Medusa might be addressing her husband Posiedon.

What do these metaphors imply about Posiedon? How do using these metaphors characterise Medusa? Is there any effect in the sibilance from “shield” and “sword”?

What is significant about the repetition in this line? If it refers to affairs, what might the repetition suggest? Additionally, what about the lexical choice of “girls” instead of “women” imply?

What impact do these rhetorical questions have?

How do you read this final line? Is it empowering or sad? Does it characterise Medusa as becoming independent, more powerful, and more confident (after her powers have grown), or does it characterise her as defeated, feeling ugly and alone?