Q: In what ways can Thetis by Carol Ann Duffy be understood as a poem about transformation?
Thetis, in ancient greek mythology was a beautiful sea goddess who had the ability of shape-shifting. Both Zeus and Posseidon were wooing her, but then a prophecy said that Thetis’ son is going to be bigger than his father, so the big gods stepped back due to their fear of being defeated by their son in the future. To avoid any inconvenience to themselves, they made a mortal, Peleus marry Thetis. The goddess was against the relationship, and wanted to escape from the hands of her fiance, but he held her tight and resisted to give up, so at the end, Thetis being left without any other choice, said yes to the merridge. They soon had their son, Achilles born, who became one of the key figures of the war of Troja. In her poem Thetis, publishes as the part of The World’s Wifes, Carol Ann Duffy rewrites this story focusing on Thetis, the woman in it. From stanza to stanza, we can see through various figures of speech the heroine’s journey from meeting a man and being pursued to then shapeshifting into different forms at a wide range of size and type to get away from being hunted down to arriving to motherhood.
The whole idea of Thetis’ shape-shifting is emphasized by the lineation of each stanza through the structural free verse form and the enjambments present. At line 1 and 2, we can read “I shrank myself to the size of a bird”, what is the very first transformation she goes through in the poem. Later on the stanza, we also get the reason why it happened. She wanted to please a man. But than, she, as a little bird “felt the squeeze of his fist” around herself, felt her life violated and had to leave, escape, shift to another shape. The pattern of the first verse almost entirely repeats in the following stanzas, except the last one. She changes into a shape, but someone threatens her life and she has to move away, shift away. This whole process is full of movements, energy, she never settles just escapes, rushes away. The poem is constructed in a structural free verse form. Every stanza is a sestet, containing 6 irregular lines flowing into each other by the enjambments. This fits the theme of the poem and supports the flow of the shifts. As the protagonists shift in shape so does the lines.
In stanza 4 the physical power of the form she shifted into is represented through various types of figures of speech and rhymes. The protagonist becomes a huge lion. It is written as a ellipse, since the world lion is not mentioned, but an asyndetic list gives us some hints. The first line of the stanza start with an onomatopoeia, as she “was roar”, the sound of a lion. It is followed by imagery, “claw, 50 lb paw, […] a zebra’s gore in my lower jaw”. We can see her as a powerful lion, it does not even have to be mentioned. Her greatness is also emphasized by the consonance of the back vowels consistently used throughout the stanza. They not only give a mysterious tone to the verse but create rhymes and pararhymes both inside the lines and between the lines. Although the physical power of this form of hers is undeniable, she cannot get even a little calmness. The “guy, in the grass, with the gun” comes. This alliteration highlights that the hunter also has power. The heroine of the poem has to go, escape, shape-shift again.
In stanza 6, the increasing despair of the heroine emphasized through the quickness and greatness of her metamorphosis is represented by different kinds of rhymes and a long asyndetic list. She now changes her tune and tone, her tactic and becomes a row of small, quick, clever animals. She shape-shifts to a “racoon, skunk, stoar, To weasel, terret, bat, mink, rat”. This is an asyndetic list containing sibilance, since there are no linking words present, and it makes the reader read it fast, what assumes the changes also happened quickly. Maybe out of despair. By this point, we left behind 5 stanzas, several shapes, and all ended up with the urge she felt to leave, to change again. The pursuer was always there somehow. She never could find safety and freedom no matter where she went, to the jungle or to the sea, and how big she was. So she tries something different now, and instead of having a lot of power she tries shapes which helps her to hide easily. The mostly internal pararhymes highlight the ambiguity and strong fluidity of her shapes in this stanza. Despite her all efforts, she has to escape and change again. A taxidermist came and “sharpened his knives”. Very visible and big danger, and also has a slight connotation in it. The taxidermist stuffs animals, which then became the trophy for the hunter who is proud of overcoming animals. The protagonist has to face the danger of being someone’s trophy, but she says “Stuff that”, which is a pun, humorously, but sharply say no.
In the last stanza the seriousness of her last and most likely least shapeshift is shown through the tone used, furthermore through end stops present. At the very end, everything is on the line. Her “tongue was flame”, and her “kisses burn” but that is not enough. She gives in everything, fight with all she has, uses her femininity, but that is not enough. The “groom wore asbestos” which is a fire-resistant material. Nothing can help. There is an end stop here, what emphasizes its seriousness. At this first sentence, what is exactly 3 lines, the half of the stanza mostly back vowels are used, highlighting the sentence’s coherence, and it’s end. Line 4, as a connector what leads to something else, equally contains back and flat vowels, while the last 2 lines, the very end, mostly contain flat vowels, changing the tone of the stanza simultaneously with the change of the heroine. Here, she “turned inside out”. Became someone entirely different. And she has a valid and huge reason for it. She became a mother, as the very last line, with a final end stop at its end says, “when the child burst out”.
At the end, Carol Ann Duffy leaves us with several questions. Throughout the whole poem, we follow the change of a woman up to a point when after a discracted, eventful, peaceless life she settles down, and gives birth. But we cannot unquestionably tell if her final transformation, shapeshift brings stability, happiness, peace to her life or it makes her stay in a trap where form she cannot escape. The poem while retelling Thetis’ ancient story brings up the very up-to-date questions whether motherhood is a social expectation which women have or do not have to fulfill, and how the judgement over women change after giving birth. The protagonist could decide by her own will to become a mother and could find fulfillment in it, but also could be forced to take the role and after just resign her fate. To my mind, there is only one unquestionable point which can be made in connection with this poem, and it is supported by the above mentioned line 4 of the last stanza, “So I changed, I learned”. The protagonist’ physical changes, the shape-shifting led her to a mental transformation, what may or may not be a good one, but it does not question its importance.
