How Does Duffy Give Women a Voice in the Mrs Lazarus?

825 Words4 Pages
This poem is Duffy’s modern interpretation of the story in the New Testament in which Christ raised Lazarus from the dead. Duffy focuses on Mrs Lazarus and how she dealt with her husband’s death and the shock of his resurrection. Duffy is giving a voice to women whose voice hither to have not been heard. Duffy makes the women how are invisible, visible. Immediately Duffy portrays to us the suffering Mrs Lazarus is going through; “I had wept for night and a day,” from this we also see Duffy is speaking on behalf of Mrs Lazarus, with her voice and narrative, showing she is giving Mrs Lazarus a voice. The whole poem is based upon the pain, hurt, and loss, love, mourning of Mrs Lazarus and how she finally moved on but then was ripped away from her through his resurrection. “Howled, shrieked, clawed,” this shows that Mrs Lazarus was physically out of control; Duffy gives her animal like expression, suggesting her behaviour was un-human like. Furthermore the word “shrieked” is a violent verb suggesting self harm. Duffy, as Mrs Lazarus, later explains the grief has led her to throwing up; “retched,” this shows that Mrs Lazarus has led herself to tormenting herself, as she is self harming and throwing up. At the end of the stanza Duffy repeats the word dead; “dead, dead,” this showing how bad her loss is, but also conveying that Mrs Lazarus is still shocked by the loss and is still not understanding it. At the beginning of the second stanza Duffy used short lines which are broken up by punctuation which makes the verse very disjointed; “Slept in a single cot” this also shows Mrs Lazarus has no body anymore and is therefore lonely, but also suggests she is like a baby in a cot who is hopeless. Duffy then puts emphasis on Mrs Lazarus grief and despair when she uses the word “widow,” followed by the word “half” suggesting that Mrs Lazarus is incomplete. We

More about How Does Duffy Give Women a Voice in the Mrs Lazarus?

Open Document