The Dramatic Monologue as a Poetic Device to Give Voice to Women in Cartol Ann Duffy's The World's Wife

Abstract

Carol Ann Duffy criticizes patriarchy, male dominance by giving voice those in society who are not usually heard. To make a strong critique, her female characters tell how they see their own lives. To achieve the strongest effect Duffy uses the dramatic monologue as a poetic form. My thesis will discuss social roles, and the dramatic monologue as a poetic device to express women’s position in society under the following headings:

The dramatic monologue and the female voice In this chapter a short summary of the dramatic monologue as a genre will be given with special regard to its use as a social critique of women’s everyday situations and to the way how this poetic form helps make the female voice heard in The World’s Wife. Social roles Chapter 3 presents those social roles in which women are required to live according to socially accepted assumptions and the ways how they rise against them and give voice to their opinions to reveal the truth. Representation of poetry Chapter 4 deals with the ways how poetry and the struggle of women poets appear in some of the poems in The World’s Wife.