Thetis By Carol Ann Duffy 6h2z59

The World’s Wife ‘Thetis’ As with many of the classical Greek myths, this one has a number of variations but the summary included here should be enough for our purposes. ‘Thetis’ is one of ten in The World’s Wife from Greek mythology, and is one of six from this group in which a female features strongly in the original story. Thetis was originally wooed by two Gods (Zeus and Poseidon) but was rejected by both when they learnt that Themis had prophesised that she was to father a child who would become mightier than the father. It was a mortal, Peleus, who eventually married Thetis and he had done so by capturing her as she changed shape and form (just as she does in the poem). Thetis’s baby was Achilles and she made him immortal by dipping him into the River Styx (although again some versions say she dipped him in fire) but because she held on to his foot to do so, his heel remained unprotected: thus the saying that a person’s vulnerability is their ‘Achille’s heel’.

The poem is about a woman growing more powerful with every stanza but thwarted by a man’s intentions (and attentions) until the moment she has a baby, at the end of the poem. There are similarities in the poem to ‘Pope Joan’ in which the woman becomes all-powerful through the experience of giving birth (and many women do say birth is empowering and liberating). Think about other poems in the collection, such as ‘Demeter’ and ‘Queen Herod’ in which children feature and decide whether you could use them as comparative poems. Each animal Thetis becomes is more powerful than the last: a small bird; an albatross; snake; lion; mermaid and other sea creatures, including a whale; and then finally to animals that are well-known for their cunning and ability to survive despite being hunted. In the first five stanzas the rhythm of the first two lines is similar if not exactly identical, but this breaks down when Thetis declares, ‘I changed my tune / to racoon, skunk, stoat’ and this mirrors her change to what are usually considered unpleasant animals, as if she is no longer trying to please anyone but herself. There is use of assonance throughout the poem and you need to think about why Duffy has included this. There are half rhymes and near rhymes and a few full rhymes, which all serve a purpose and which you must consider. In the penultimate stanza Thetis becomes, ‘wind, I was gas, / I was all hot air,’ She has become intangible, ethereal: she can not be grasped or held. Duffy has followed a fairly traditional view here, in which the female is seen as nature, part of the natural order, with an innate desire to replenish and restore; to continue life through giving birth, whereas the male is seen as a destructive force, concerned with his own desires and promoting ‘man-made’ elements.

‘Thetis’ copyright © Carol Ann Duffy © 2005 www.teachit.co.uk

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The World’s Wife Some of the items the man uses to capture Thetis are personified, such as the ‘squint of the crossbow’s eye’. Why has Duffy done this? Perhaps to show the increasing power and violence of the man and his weapons: they become part of his army, prepared to stand with him to defeat Thetis. Duffy explores the ability and often the necessity that women feel to alter themselves for a man, ‘So I shopped for a suitable shape’ whilst also mocking men’s perception that women enjoy the experience of shopping. You might disagree with this view and feel that she is mocking some women because of their desire to always look ‘right’ and that she is also criticising women’s materialism. Thetis is initially subservient to the man, ‘I shrank myself’ and then ‘shouldered the cross of an albatross’. It is only later in the poem after, ‘I sank through the floor of the earth’ that she appears to become powerful and this moment can almost be seen as a moment of re-birth, particularly with its connotations of baptism. In the fifth stanza, the voice of Thetis refers to, ‘his hook and his line and his sinker’ which has the double meaning of the man’s attempts to catch her (and it is a violent capture) and also a reference to love, in that people refer to being caught ‘hook, line and sinker’. Duffy has perhaps meant this to have an ironic double meaning in that, for women, relationships are sometimes destructive. In the sixth stanza the animals Thetis metamorphoses into have negative connotations, ‘racoon, skunk, stoat, / to weasel, ferret, bat, mink, rat.’ They are often considered disease-ridden, smelly, sly and even evil. In the last stanza Thetis has obviously been married as she refers to a ‘groom’ but he is insignificant in the moment of giving birth. Although the rest of the poem has not had the rhythm of labour, like ‘Pope Joan’ the poem could be interpreted as another birth poem in that women often describe a feeling of increasing power during labour, from feeling out of control and afraid to taking control of the situation and their bodies. Certainly the last stanza of this poem gives the impression of a woman in the last moments of labour before giving birth, when the whole body can feel as if it is on fire with the effort and energy of labour, particularly with the reference to her being, ‘turned inside out’. At the close of the poem the focus has shifted away from Thetis and her attempts to evade the man, to the baby because the poem finishes with, ‘when the child burst out’. It seems like a new beginning, which having children is, in that your old life and your needs and desires become secondary to that of the infant. Throughout the rest of the poem Duffy has used ‘I’ seventeen times but in the last stanza Thetis announces, ‘So I changed, I learned’ and immediately the ‘I’, or sense of Thetis disappears as the child is born.

What do you think about this poem? Is it happy, sad, bitter, triumphant, celebratory? What is your reaction to it? What other poems from the collection might you compare it to? What is the poem about: love; relationships; childbirth; power?

‘Thetis’ copyright © Carol Ann Duffy © 2005 www.teachit.co.uk

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