"It happened like this - I did everything in my power to make him look back": Gender and Relationships in Carol Ann Duffy's "The World's Wife"

Abstract

This essay explores the importance of gender with regard to the relationships depicted in Carol Ann Duffy's collection of poems "The World's Wife", arguing that factors such as individual traits and social circumstances are of greater weight than any gender incompabilities. Firstly, the characteristics with which Duffy endows female and male characters are discussec, pointing out that the relationships described fail for other reasons than mere gender discord. Secondly, reasons offered for failures in heterosexual relationships are explored futher, focusing on the poems "Little Red-Cap" and "Pygmalion's Bride" after which follows a discussion pertaining to the transgression of gender norms in "Mrs Beast" and "Delilah", along with a section questioning the existence of gender-specific traits. The chapter ends in an analysis of the potentially successful heterosexual relationship depicted in "Anne Hathaway", and the last chapter deals with the relationship between two women in "Mrs Tiresias", as compared to the speader's previous heterosexual marriage. Whereas non-gender-specific individual traits such as greed and selfishness, along with historical gender discrimination and other social circumstances, account for the majority of the failing relationships depicted in the collection, communication emerges as the main determining factor in successful and prosperous relationships, wheter heterosexual or between two women.