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Mrs Tiresias Spring 2009

Page history last edited by Kristen Williams 7 mos ago

Carol Ann Duffy (1955-)

Mrs. Tiresias (1999)

All I know is this:

he went out for his walk a man

and came home female.

Out the back gate with his stick,

the dog;

wearing his gardening kecks,

an open-necked shirt,

and a jacket in Harris tweed I'd patched at the elbows myself.

Whistling.^[1]

He liked to hear

the first cuckoo of spring

then write to The Times.

I'd usually heard it

days before him

but I never let on.^[2]

I'd heard one that morning

while he was asleep;

just as I heard,

at about 6 p.m.,

a faint sneer of thunder up in the woods

and felt

a sudden heat

at the back of my knees.

He was late getting back.

I was brushing my hair at the mirror

and running a bath

when a face

swam into view

next to my own.

The eyes were the same.

But in the shocking V of the shirt were breasts.

When he uttered my name in his woman's voice I passed out.

* * *

Life has to go on.^[3]

I put it about that he was a twin

and this was his sister

come down to live

while he himself

was working abroad.

And at first I tried to be kind;

blow-drying his hair till he learnt to do it himself,

lending him clothes till he started to shop for his own,

sisterly, holding his soft new shape in my arms all night.

Then he started his period.

One week in bed.

Two doctors in.

Three painkillers four times a day.^[4]

And later

a letter

to the powers that be

demanding full-paid menstrual leave twelve weeks per year.

I see him still,

his selfish pale face peering at the moon^[5]

through the bathroom window.

The curse, he said, the curse.

Don't kiss me in public,

he snapped the next day,

I don't want folk getting the wrong idea.

It got worse.

* * *

After the split I would glimpse him

out and about,

entering glitzy restaurants

on the arms of powerful men —

though I knew for sure

there'd be nothing of that

going on

if he had his way —

or on TV

telling the women out there^[6]

how, as a woman himself,

he knew how we felt.

His flirt's smile.

The one thing he never got right

was the voice.

A cling peach slithering out from its tin.^[7]^[8]

I gritted my teeth.

* * *

And this is my lover, I said,

the one time we met

at a glittering ball

under the lights,

among tinkling glass,

and watched the way he stared

at her violet eyes,

at the blaze of her skin,

at the slow caress of her hand on the back of my neck;

and saw him picture

her bite,

her bite at the fruit of my lips,

and hear

my red wet cry in the night

as she shook his hand

saying How do you do;

and I noticed then his hands, her hands,

the clash of their sparkling rings and their painted nails.

Footnotes

The speaker, Mrs. Tiresias, is complaining about her husband and the conflict they have as a couple. Firstly, she feels that his words are bigger than the action. According to her, he exaggerates trivial fact, such as "the first cuckoo of spring," so much that he writes it" to The Times." Furthermore, he lets other people know of his presence by "whistling," which Mrs. Tiresias thinks very arrogant. Then, she realizes what has happened to him – sex change. She thinks her husband is ridiculously cowardly. Having menstrual period, which she has dealt with throughout her life without too much fuss, he is taking the situation to another step. He is staying in bed for "one week," calling the doctors, having "three painkillers four times a day," and even having extreme mood swings. Although she is trying to overcome hatred and be in love with him once again like in the beginning of their relationship, it seems as though it has gone beyond the point of control. – Jung Hong ▲
Throughout the poem, Duffy portrays the man as inept and unintelligent. As a male, he performs trivial acts such as going on walks, whistling, and reporting the "first cuckoo of spring." Even so, the speaker goes on to explain that she "usually heard [the cuckoo] / days before him / but [she] never let on." This explanation suggests that the female is more apt than the male. This implication is what leads to the irony present in the remaining sections of the poem. In his transformation, the man tries to experience what it means to be a woman. Due to his ineptness, he will never truly understand. Duffy demonstrates his incompetence by showing us his inability to handle his first menstrual period and the mood swings. Also, he never gets the "voice" right. With his incompetence, Duffy suggests that a man can never fully comprehend the identity of a woman, and perhaps even vice versa. Patrick McFarland ▲
In the first line of the poem, the speaker offers what she says is the only information she's been given and it seems as though she doesn't know too much. However in the second stanza she says that she actually had better hearing than her husband but "never let on". This indicates that she is probably fully aware that her husband went out and did something foolish and was punished by the gods. She passes out only after hearing his "woman's voice" and thereafter continued her life as usual. With this immediate statement that "life has to go on", Duffy is suggesting the strength of a wife to not only know her husband and predict his actions, but also to stand beside him when he makes mistakes, and maintain humility when she is a few steps ahead of him. ▲
The speaker mentions aspects of women and what they tend to do. She began seeing the man as a woman with "breasts" and a "woman's voice." The speaker does not make a huge deal about it, because "life has to go on." It appears she wanted to ignore what she was witnessing because she acted as if this new woman was his "twin...sister" who replaced her brother while "working abroad." The speaker does not want to accept certain things. She also treated him like a child, "blow-drying" his hair and "lending him clothes"; that is, until "he started his period." The speaker then elaborates of the negative aspects of being a woman and what they have to endure and live with. The poet's feminism comes through this poem by the emphasis on women's importance and all that they go through by being a woman, and that it is no easy task. --Cara Weiner ▲
Duffy uses words in the poem to accurately depict many characteristics of a woman, factors of which Mrs. Tiresias did not like in her husband. For instance, Mrs. Tiresias gave a description of her husband's behavior while on his period. She uses the words "selfish," "pale," and "it got worse." It became clear in this description that she was unhappy with her husband and of their situation. Duffy mentions the pain a woman experiences during her period to show how difficult it can be to be a woman. I think Duffy emphasizes how men are not used to such pain, because when the husband had his period he was "One week in bed. / Three painkillers four times a day." These lines show that a man was unable to handle the pain a woman must experience. This idea is important, because it may show Duffy's feministic viewpoint. Shahnaz Rahman ▲
Duffy comments on her husband's behavior when she describes him as "telling the women out there / how, as a woman himself, / he knew how we felt" (lines 68-70). She implies that her husband has a condescending manner by stating that he thinks he knows exactly what women experience. The juxtaposition of "woman" and "himself" supports this implication as the husband may have some idea of a woman's life, but he cannot know everything. Duffy hints at the husband's incomplete understanding of women when she comments "The one thing he never got right / was the voice" (lines 72-73). As much as the husband tries to prove that he understands women, Duffy points out that he is not as knowledgeable as he thinks. Stacey Elkhatib ▲
As Alison mentions, there is a lot of sensual and sexual connotations and themes throughout the poem, mainly in its abundance of fruit imagery. She describes Tiresias' voice as a "cling peach slithering out from its tin." A peach slithering out from its tin describes its color fading away, perhaps the peach's tint representing whatever is left of Tiresias' masculinity as it "clings" on. He no longer possesses any sort of masculine traits as the diction of "sliterhing" connotes a gentle scurrying away motion attributed to gentleness and femininity. -Brandon ▲
Duffy uses references to fruit throughout this poem as a reference to the female form. A peach in particular is often used to mean aspects of females, particularly the sensual and sexual parts. After looking up what a “cling peach” is exactly, it’s a more than perfect fit in describing a masculine female who is not quite there (there being fully female). For cling peaches, the flesh tends to pull when removing the pit, causing the fruit to be torn of misshapen. Because of this it is more often used in canning so the deformed shapes won’t be noticed. They are also noticeably less juicy than other peaches. Knowing this, the reference of cling peaches to demonstrate how Tiresias never fully mastered the subtleties of the female voice make more sense. Additional references to fruit include “her bite / her bite at the fruit of my lips” where jealousy arises and the exact question of which “lips” of the former mate are being bit to cause the “red wet cry in the night.” The female form is soft, ripe, and juicy, making a fruit a prime metaphoric choice. (Quoting line with “holding his soft new shape”.) ~Kristen Williams ▲

Comments (2)

At the end of line 3, "and came home female":
According to certain Greek myths, Tiresias, who is most famous as the blind seer in the "Odyssey," came across two mating snakes and struck them with his staff. The snake itself is a loaded symbol in Greek, in fact in many of the world's mythologies, both for embodying the apparently oppositional characteristics of life and death/the afterlife (as both a superterranean and a subterranean organism), and of health and sickness (the ancient Greek word for both "venom" and healing "medicine" is "pharmakon"). Because of this action, Hera transforms Tiresias into a woman, which he remains for seven years, until he comes across the same pair of serpents and strikes them again and is changed back into a man. After these event, Hera and her husband Zeus ask him, since he has had the unique experience of being both male and female, for which gender is sexual intercourse better. Both deities argued that the opposite sex got more pleasure from the act. For some reason, when Tiresias affirms that the woman has it better (biologically defensible, since a woman has more nerve endings in her clitoris than a man does in the head of the penis, or at least, the female's is the only organ whose biological function is solely for pleasure), Hera is scandalized (I personally don't get the logic) and makes him blind. Zeus compensates by giving him the gift of prophecy, for which he becomes a famous mythological figure. Anyway, all this background is pertinent to this sexually-charged poem. Alison Mattox

End of Line 9

Throughout the poem, there are single lines that are separated from the rest of the stanzas. This serves to emphasize the importance and connotations of each action, and ultimately helps get across the main message. The first line, "Whistling", is initially seen as a random detail, but in relation to the rest of the poem shows the ignorance of Tiresias. The act of whistling usually implies a carefree manner, but at the same time Mrs. Tiresias points out that she "usually heard [the first cuckoo of spring]/days before him", showing that Tiresias is blithely unaware of his ignorance. This is magnified when Tiresias becomes a woman, as he is unable to truly know what it is to live as a female since he is too weak to deal even with the physical pain of menstruation. The lines "Life has to go on" and "Then he started his period" are connected, since the stanzas following each line describe how while Tiresias learned to learn to do his hair and wear women's clothing, his immaturity with dealing with menstruation stopped his growing realization of how it is to be a woman. After Tiresias goes as far to demand a paid work leave during his menstruation, a sign of his ignorance, "It got worse". These single lines, which structurally halts the poem and so shows the curt and biting mood of the speaker due to her husband's ignorance, do not appear in the last stanza. Once the speaker has found a female lover, she is able to somewhat leave behind the problems she had with her husband, as there are no more single lines that point out troubling actions. Ginny Kyuhee Chae

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