The Map-Woman = Identity / Freedom / Past/history / Change / Loss / Conflict & Body
- Regular form (thirteen stanzas of 10 lines) - reflects the content of a map BUT is regular 10
repetitive and restrictive.
- Duffy uses the map-woman's body and skin as an extended metaphor for a map of her past. In
turn, she is hyper aware of her body and "stared in the mirror as she got dressed" and "turned
out the light and a lover's hands caressed the map" which suggests body image issues like
Offred*
- The map-woman's childhood memories are negative like "when she knelt she felt her father's
house pressing into the bone", which metaphorically reflects how though the map can be
covered from sight her past remains as permanent as her skeletal structure. Yet, this could
allude to the emotional pain of moving away from home so young (reflecting Duffy's own life
as she left home at sixteen), an abusive parent-child relationship, or implies divorce as it is the
"father's house" rather than the plural parents. This idea is continued through her "parents’
skulls" grinning at the end which could imply they have died, but the typically positive adjective
"grinning" in this context creates a more sinister atmosphere so it seems as if they are
taunting her and relishing in her distress - reflecting how her past will always come back to
haunt her, like Offred's flashbacks.
- Stereotypical, nostalgic childhood memories - for example "ice-cream van", "doll[s]" and
"children" - allows her to remember the good memories of her past and ignore the bad. Yet
even these memories are somewhat negative as the "ice-cream van [is personified as] crying"
and the "children's shrieks". In turn this creates nightmarish sensory imagery that reverses a
joyous moment, and by using the present tense it creates the idea she can't escape the past
as she is stuck there in this memory. Contrast Offred's past tense/flashbacks
- She physically tries to "soaped, spunged, scrubbed" the map away, with these words getting
progressively more violent and plosive as she gets more desperate and fearful of her past.
This imagery of excessive cleaning acts could relate to OCD, or is a type of rebellion against
the life being imposed onto her. The woman also tries to escape her hometown by travelling
away, emphasised by repetitive asyndetic lists such as of big cities like "Glasgow, London,
Liverpool" where her past and identity can become even more anonymous, or imagery of
transport "on a plane or train or boat, on the road, in hotels, in the back of cabs, on the phone"
- both reflecting her desperation to escape.
- Primarily she covers up the map she is embarrassed by through layering clothes. At the start
her listing is with more simple items "with a shawl… with trousers or jeans". In contrast, by the
end they are more luxurious "satin, silk, leather, wool, perfume and mousse" and she indulges
in more lavish practices as though money can change who she is. Despite this "the map
perspired under her clothes" rejecting this, as identity can't be hidden under superficial means
and covers.
- She questions her unfulfilling life in a small town where people's main ambitions are solely "who
you would marry and how and where and when you would die", increasing her desire for
freedom - mirrored by the regular 10 line length 13 stanzas which is repetitive and restrictive.
Offred loses her desire for freedom. This likely is semi-autobiographical due to Duffy's own
experience growing up in the market town of Stafford.
- The simile of "her skin sloughed like a snake", with the use of sibilance to elongate the
sentence and shedding, denotes when animals shed their dead skin. This could imply that the
woman is shedding her past as she may have lost her sense of self, or wants to become a
new version of herself. When she fully accepts she cannot change her past, it finally stops
having power over her.
- Her identity is tied to the existence of her hometown, which she once knew her way around
very well. When she returns to see it has changed externally and gets "lost", her identity starts
to deteriorate - symbolised by the "stale cake of the castle crumbled up on the hill".
- Unlike "birthmark[s]", "tattoo[s]" and "braille" which are permanent, by likening her skin to
fragile clothes like "papery camisole… tissuey socks" that are easily and frequently changed,
Duffy could be suggesting that we do not need to be defined by our past, or that her identity is
so fragile now
- However, like the "morning sun that glittered" which although appears positive, it is implied this
is a falsehood and not the case that she can rid her past so easily, as it is reminiscent of
Shakespeare’s "all that glitters is not gold" in The Merchant of Venice denoting external
appearance is not a reliable indication of its true nature.
- The adverb 'barely' in "showed barely a mark" implies the map is not completely gone.
Although the upper layer of identity has been almost fully removed, she is still unable to
, change the "old streets" in her "bone[s]" which is who she is at her core - with the final
internally rhymed couplet of "bone" and "home" displaying the inescapable "looped" nature of
the past.
- Though she won't admit it to herself and tries to justify her decision to return "back [home]" as
idleness, she consciously makes this choice as she is aware of the long journey she has to
travel in "a car for a night and a day". Therefore, not only is she incapable of escaping her
past but in fact she does not truly want to.
Beautiful = Identity / Mistreatment / Power / Relationship with men / History / Fear / Gender /
No change / Body
- Women can have power through their beauty, but to an extent as it causes destruction and
death
- Never explicitly says their names, an allusion to them
- 1) Helen = freeform structure (some paragraphs are short, while some long) reflects the myths
around Helen of Troy. Final stanza is only 2 lines, shows her demise
- 2) Cleo = long stanzas = her long reign & her death is only described in 2 words, only a slight
mark on her reign
- 3) Marilyn = lines get longer, showing how controlled by the media she is
- 4) Diana = most structurally confined section, written in quatrains = reflects the pressure on
Diana to conform to the stereotypes of a princess.
- Helen of Troy - from Greek mythology, who was considered the most beautiful woman in the
world - has immense influence over the men. Despite the fact they have no chance with her as
she is married, they would "[stand] in line, sighed, knelt beseeched be mine" for her, "swore to
be true to her till death" and even went to war for her.
- Helen's admirers use religious and royal imagery like "divinely fair.... child of grace" and
"princess", implying they see her status as higher than theirs, which subverts their patriarchal
society's hierarchy.
- Yet, the repetition of "some said" and various interpretations of what happened to Helen
reflects how men try to impose roles on women, and how women's stories are lost throughout
time. Historical notes
- Her relationship with her female "maid, who loved her most, refused to say one word", is the
strongest as she protects her - unlike her husband who had been "sliced… in his throat".
- Even when dead she is objectified and sexualised through the way her "dress clung to her
form, a stylish shroud". Like Marilyn, whose naked body is visible to the "cop".
- Cleopatra appears to have the most power due to her awareness of her sexual appeal like
Offred with the guards & Commander. She "sashayed up the river" and "every man that night"
saw her "shoulders, breast" which she revealed to seductively tease them.
- She "had [Caesar]... gibbering in bed by twelve", with the adjective "gibbering" denoting to
chatter unintelligibly and meaninglessly. It reduces Julius Caesar - a powerful male Roman
general who is "ten times her strength" - to a childlike and submissive state due to her power
and dominance over him implied sexually "in bed". Celopatra and Caesar at the start were
also in a political alliance, so not only did she gain power over him but political power in
general.
- Causes Caesar to “crouch with lust” and forced to "kneel to pick her up" = suggests she is in
power, yet as she is at his feet and a passive object here perhaps she isn't.
- She "painted him, her lipstick smeared on his mouth" - applying makeup either herself or from
kissing - which emasculates him, and he cannot even admit its makeup instead 'paint'
- She "held her drink until the big man slid beneath the table, wrecked", again emasculating him
as she wins at a stereotypically masculine game
- Unlike Cleopatra who was in control of her image, for sex symbol Marilyn Monroe it is the
"camera" and the men
- Her "startled gaze" and "little voice" shows her fear and vulnerability, and how they like her
being innocent, submissive etc like the Handmaids and bunny costume in jezebels. Like
Diana's "blue eyes widened" from the press.
- Joe DiMaggion the "athlete licked the raindrops from her fingertips to quench his thirst", which
emphasises his immense desire for her as he would lick her sweat which physically is the
least attractive part of her body
- The repetition in "they filmed her harder, harder" is sexual and exploitative as they wont stop till
they get what they want
, - She is "investors gold", continued with "teeth gems, [and] her eyes sapphires", covers up their
mistreatment, she is marketed as a product rather than respected for her talent
- The myth that she was a "dumb beauty" was perpetrated by the media. It was easier for Monroe
to play along with this and be deliberately self-deprecating as it makes men feel stronger and her
succeed
- She "slept in an eye-mask, naked, drugged" and had "coffee, pills, booze', left vulnerable,
defenceless and forced
- Monroe was rumoured to have had an affair with "Happy Birthday, Mr President [Kennedy]", yet
the world blamed her rather than the wildly powerful man who manipulated her
- She was exploited for money even after death and "she couldn’t die when she died"
- Previously she lost her identity, but in death she becomes natural again and has a "strong
resemblance to herself, the dark roots of her pubic hair".
- Diana's bulimia and dehumanising treatment from the media is romanticised through "elegant
bone", "her bones danced", "beautifully pale" - ignoring the truth.
- She is trapped by the media and the monarchy, physically reflected through the alliterative
consonant "ankles crossed, knees clamped, hands clasped"
- Men use offensive misogynistic language and treats her aggressively: "Act like a fucking
princess" and "Give us a smile, cunt", wanting her to smile like stereotypical happy women, yet
expect her to conform. Imperative statements with caesuras appear incredibly blunt to emphasise
the aggression of these statements, as amplified by the consonant and fricative misogynistic
language which shows inequality through men's lack of respect to women - especially female
royalty of a much higher societal status than them.
- Like blunt harsh caesura of: "Beauty is fame."
Tall = Identity / Mistreatment / Power / Rebel/Conform / Isolation / Change / Conflict /
Relationship with men / Body
- Structurally the 17 stanzas mirror her height and by contrast the individual stanzas represent
the normal-sized characters of the poem. The small stanzas making up a larger whole could
also be understood as a representation of the feminist movement, many people binding
together into a cohesive whole to fight against inequality.
- Enjambment and internal rhymes increases the poem's pace to match the speed of her
growth
- The female character is used as a microcosm of all marginalised and isolated women in
patriarchal society, that men impose a role on
- It begins with the adverb "then", implying everything from the woman's life previously has been
forgotten, and she continues to lose her identity further as the poem progresses.
- She is isolated to only be identified by her size, like the Handmaids for their body/red clothes,
emphasising the scrutiny women typically experience in society regarding their bodies.
- Duffy dehumanises the tall woman through animalistic comparisons, such as the emotive verb
"howled", which shows her distress and the damage it is having on her mental health.
- The sexist cat calling caesura of "somebody whooped" disrupts the metre, mirroring how
women’s lives are interrupted by male outbursts like these.
- She goes to a "bar" which implies she feels isolated and lonely as there are lots of people
there and also drinks which will allow her to momentarily numb her pain.
- Consonant verbs "knelt", "stooped" and "bowed herself into a bar" implies she has to force
her way into the bar - a stereotypically male location. These actions also implies that she is
willing to lose her one strength to try and assist others, showing how women are empathetic
and caring even when mistreated.
- "Her clothes would be curtains and eiderdowns, towels and rugs", reflecting how she is forced
to conform to patriarchal society, which doesn’t cater for women that don’t fit into the norms
(so as she isn’t regularly sized she has to find her own way of clothing herself).
- As she is "bigger than any man" she uses her size to gain control in male dominated society.
They become "scared" of her and are emasculated to "fled like a boy". Thus, at the end they
wear "stilts" as they don't want women to have more power than them, and rebel against her
by protesting: "local crowds swarmed round her feet, chanting".
- The question "What could she see up there?" mocks the tall woman's gift and reduces her to
only a "weatherwoman" despite her being able to do so much more.
- She internalises society's views and is self-deprecating in her belief that "she cured no one",
when in reality she acts almost as an angel and "caught their souls in her hands as they fell".
