Penelope

 Penelope- loyalty

Odysseus

o   he sleeps with calypso and Circe (he isn’t faithful)

o   responsible for the deaths of a lot of people

o   clever: blinding the cyclops, hiding under sheep, wax to plug ears

o   Impulsive

Duffy uses this poem in her world’s wife collection because she has been loyal to her husband, even though he has been unfaithful and cheats on her with other women.

Circe turned Odysseus’ men into pigs. Odysseus stays with her for a year.

Purpose/ Thoughts/ Feelings of poem:

·         Showing her struggles, she has to go through as a woman

·         Importance of embroidery to Penelope

o   Emotion

o   Something purely for herself

·         Ideas of time/waiting

·         A woman can be happy by herself without needing a man in her life

Possessive pronoun

Ø  Emphasises the idea of not needing a man

Ø  Shows how woman have to go through struggles and do things on their own, without relying on their husbands

Ø  Independence

Ø  Able to fend for herself

Ø  Shift in power (has more power, as she is doing things herself)

Also, the rhyming of 'thread’ and ‘instead’ at the beginning of the stanza, and the rhyming couplet at the end of the stanza — ‘bee’ and ‘tree’ — provide coherence and purposeful rhythm

The stanza ends with a rhyming couplet to create a sense of completeness. Throughout this stanza there is a mood of creative enthusiasm, and sensuous pleasure in colours. Note that ‘walnut brown’ is a rich deep colour to contrast with the gentle pink and grey.