To What Extent Is Carol Ann Duffy's Presentation of Stereotypical Representation of Women in 'the Devils Wife' Representative of the Worlds Wife as a Whole?

To what extent is Carol Ann Duffy's presentation of stereotypical representation of women in 'The Devils Wife' representative of the Worlds Wife as a whole?

Throughout the worlds wife the central themes are representation of modern day women, Equality Marriage, Homosexuality, Birth, sexual desire and Relationships. I have chosen the poem 'The Devils Wife' and the theme I have chosen is the representation of women because it is an ongoing theme though out the whole collection. Duffy has chosen to represent women in a way we are not use to seeing them, very much to the traditional image of women she has given portrayed more of a modern view thought out the 'Worlds Wife'.

'The Devils Wife' is a dramatic monologue which is no surprise as all of the poems in the collection are. The poem shows the moors murders case though the eyes of Myra Hindley. The Poem is about Hindley, who together with Ian Brady were convicted for sexually assaulting and murdering several children in 1965. Hindley and Brady's relationship has been called a 'folie a deux' which means that separately they would never have committed such a crime but together they could. The poem has close references to the moors murders case. Such as in the first stanza of the second section it quotes 'i flew in my chains over the woods where we'd buried the doll' this references when both Brady and Hindley were sent out separately to try and identify where they had buried the unfound bodies. This Myra Hindely case is linked to the representation of women berceuse when this case was shown in the media more of the spotlight was on Hindley because she was a woman and it was shocking that a woman would commit such a crime because out of the male and female sex it's the woman who is seen as gentle, fragile and kind and Hindleys actions shocked the whole nation.

the layout of the poem which Duffy has chosen to show in chronological order which shows Hindley deal with her situation in such as her acceptance of the situation she is now in and the presentation of herself to the public. In section one there are short sentences which represents Hindley as tough, cold and get the point this is different as to what women are normally seen as. In the second section the poem adopts more poetic features and patterning such as rhyme. In the second section the last two lines of each stanza rhyme such as 'precisely where... I didn't care...we'd be out on the open road...how could this be hell?' but it still does not change the cold impression we have of Hindley. This isn't the way in which women are represented, women are the more feminine beautiful sex but references from this poem do not support this representation. The poem says 'tongue of stone. Two black slates for eyes...no body's mam. She does not describe herself as a feminine woman quite the opposite in fact. It almost represents her as a monster. There is specific links to medusa in this poem 'I gave the camera my medusas stare' this shows she doesn't see herself as a woman's was nobody's mam' makes it clear that other people don't see her a feminine beautiful women.

Duffy uses description very well in the first two stanzas of the poem especially to describe Brady though Hindley's eye. Duffys uses words such as 'rude', 'insolent', 'dumb' and 'foul mouthed' to describe her lover and partner in crime. The words she uses aren't necessarily attractive ways in which to describe a lover, which makes think why is she so drawn to this 'insolent' man? This represents women as being drawn to danger and how easily they are lead astray by a male. The poem quotes 'on fire for him' the word 'fire' itself connotes danger which makes clear her attraction to things that

...