Medusa - Carol Ann Duffy Flashcards
Literary devices
- Imagery
- Symbolism
- Metaphor
Imagery
Character of Medusa
Symbolism
The symbolism of having snakes and being Medusa
Medusa
“as though my thoughts / hissed and spat on my scalp.” - sibilance and zoomorphism
“My bride’s breath soured, stank” - sibilance
“I’m foul mouthed now, foul tongued, / yellow fanged. /
There are bullet tears in my eyes.”, “So better be for me if you were stone.” - turning into a monster because of sadness, able to damage with eyes
“I stared in the mirror. / Love gone bad / showed me a Gorgon.” - becoming a monster
Jealousy
“and your girls, your girls. / Wasn’t I beautiful / Wasn’t I fragrant and young?” - Poseidon has new girls and she is jealous of them - what do they have that she doesn’t.
Confliction
“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.”
Third stanza (excluding “are you terrified?”) shows her conflict. She wants him and says that she loves him and finds him perfect but she also knows he is unable to love her the way she loves him so she wants him to turn to stone. Turning him to stone may also be a way to keep him how and where she wants him instead of betraying her with other women.
Anger
Anger builds throughout the poem, supported by the growing damage of her ability to turn to stone
“I glanced at a bee, / a dull grey pebble fell / to the ground” to “I stared at a dragon. / fire spewed / from the mouth of the mountain”
Violence
“Shield for a heart, sword for a tongue” - “shield”: only knew battle, couldn’t open up and love correctly. “Sword”: the damage inflicted when he betrayed her was as painful as if he used his sword to pierce her heart.
“Look at me now” - Look at me and turn to stone
Structure
use havi lmao
Context
naughty Poseidon left her and this left her schmad and angry !!!
