Carol Ann Duffy ‘Medusa’ Reflection

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

In the poem above, it tells the story of medusa. The original story of medusa is as follows. Medusa was a very beautiful young woman who was seduced by the greek god Poseidon. Poseidon lured her to the temple of Athena and raped her in the temple. Athena was very offended by this but was unable to take her anger out on Poseidon (As he is the on of the big three, eg. Zeus, Poseidon and Hades. They are all the most powerful gods.) and therefore decides to punish Medusa instead. Athena punishes Medusa by taking away her beauty and turning her into a monster with snakes for hair and who can turn people into stone with one look in the eye.

Though there is an original story of Medusa and of course this poem is quite heavily based on the character and story of Medusa, Carol Ann Duffy is still able to tell her own sort of story through the eyes of this very well known character. To tell the story, Carol Ann Duffy uses many different devices and strategies to convert the story into a poem. For example in the first line where Duffy writes ‘A suspicion, a doubt, a jealousy’ there would be an example of escalation. Escalation describes the way that each word gets more and more intense as the sentence progresses.

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *