The Map-Woman

Question 1

Themes

Answer 1

Women’s bodies
Identity
Attempt to escape being female - futile, inescapable
Needs to evolve and change
But original identity always reasserts itself
Physical identity
Expectations
Time
Relevant to men but explores female taboos

Question 2

Structure

Answer 2

Enjambment - freedom within poem, contrasts with poems explored constraints
Regular stanza length - constraint on life
Rhyming couplet at end - closure, inescapable past
List
Different languages - a universal challenge

Question 3

Typicality and context

Answer 3

Mention of Nelson and Churchill - male leaders, military
Kipling and Milton - poets
Glasgow, London, and Liverpool - places close to Duffy
Change/evolution - turn of century
Jeanette Winterson’s ‘Written on the Body’

Question 4

Atwood

Answer 4

Identity
Importance of home
Childhood
Past
Memory
Appearance vs reality
Loss of loved ones