MedusaBy Carol Ann Duffy

a blackly humorous version of the myth

This dramatic monologue offers an unusual perspective on the Gorgon Medusa. She is a symbol of terror and ugliness, feared for her terrible looks and foetid breath. In giving Medusa a chance to tell her story Duffy asks us to consider an alternative view and to see her as a woman who, fearing betrayal by her husband, developed the terrible physical characteristics for which she is so well known.

A suspicion, a doubt, a jealousygrew in my mind,which turned the hairs on my head to filthy snakesas though my thoughtshissed and spat on my scalp.

Opens with a list of emotions. The snakes on Medusa’s head are the embodiment of her destructive and negative thoughts about her love betraying her.

personification – which is fitting as the thoughts become snakes which almost appear to have a life of their own

Alliteration / sibilance: mimics the hiss of the snakes – vivid, grotesque imagery

Onomatopoeia: reason for this is to contact with the audience make the reader feel as they are in the poem

My bride’s breath soured, stankin 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?

The danger posed by upsetting Medusa is emphasised by the metaphor. Harsh image reflects her stony feelings

normally metaphorically used to describe a person who uses a lot of obscenities but in this case there is a literal sense of her mouth being filthy and putrescent, along with her tongue

She asks 'Are you terrified?' directing the question to the 'perfect man, Greek who is presumably Perseus. She would prefer the man she loves to be stone than someone else's.

alliterations enhance the fluency and quicken the pace of the poem, making it more manacing

Images of old age

Be terrified.It’s you I love,perfect man, Greek God, my own;but I know you’ll go, betray me, strayfrom home.So better by for me if you were stone.

Imperative verb, short, stark sentence: a frightening command and warning. Suggests she is in charge

First rhyme comes in line 15. Suggests the certainty she has that he will leave her as she gets older. Sense of inevitability and resignation about it.

I glanced at a buzzing bee,a dull grey pebbly fellto the ground.I glanced at a singing bird,a handful of dusty gravelspattered down.

She uses appropriate types of stone for each living thing that Medusa kills

a chilling warning in the shape of a list of creatures that she has turned to stone

What do these 2 things have in common?

I looked at a ginger cat,a housebrickshattered a bowl of milk.I looked at a snuffling pig,a boulder rolledin a heap of shit.

The verbs 'spattered' and 'shattered' are powerfully destructive and disruptive to the natural order that would otherwise prevail

The looks are getting progressively longer as the poem goes on – we have moved from a glance to a look and in the next stanza to a stare. This mirrors Medusa’s growing anger and frustration.

the animals increase in size, as though she is working up to something. This builds on the increasingly sinister tone of the poem

I stared in the mirror.Love gone badshowed me a Gorgon.I stared at a dragon.Fire spewedfrom the mouth of a mountain.

Medusa is not able to look for long at others but is able to stare at herself in the mirror and see all her imperfections and aging. She is sure that the love she shared with her husband has ‘gone bad’ because of how she now looks.

this oxymoronic phrase is central to the main ideas of the poem. Medusa is the physical embodiment of love going wrong.

And here you comewith a shield for a heartand a sword for a tongueand your girls, your girls.Wasn’t I beautifulWasn’t I fragrant and young?

Look at me now.

Pathos. We are reminded of the contrast between what Medusa was, and what she has become

The final line is loaded with ambiguity. It indicates her resignation and sadness in the face of what she has become but there is also a remaining desire for Perseus to see her as she once was. A third element is that if he were to look at her directly he would turn to stone and be lost to her forever anyway which, as she says in stanza three would be 'better by far' than enduring betrayal.

Metaphors. It is suggested that he is cold and maybe even hurtful to the speaker. “shield” suggests guarded and closed with “heart” we get the idea that he does not return the speaker’s affection.“sword” obviously has connotations of cutting, violence and pain so just as a sword cuts, so the speaker suggests that the man’s words cut and hurt her.

Implies betrayal

ComparisonThe Clown PunkThe eponymous characters of both poems are frightening as well as tragic.Both poems rely on strong visual imagery to engage the reader.Like Medusa, the Clown Punk is a character we wouldn't normally observe so closely: both poems ask us to take a second look at someone we might try to avoid.Singh Song!Both poems use distinctive imagery to create the character of a strong woman.Alliteration and rhyme are powerfully used in both poems, but neither follows a regular rhyme scheme.Although both poems are about marriages, love leads to happiness in Singh Song!, unlike the love described in Medusa.