Liar - Carol Ann Duffy

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Liar - How does Duffy portray this women so sympathetically? In the poem Liar by Carol Ann Duffy, the title “liar” gives negative connotations and so it attracts the readers attention from the start. In the first stanza “Susan” claims that “she was really a man” and that “after she’d taken off her cotton floral day-frock she was him all right, in her head, dressed in that heavy herringbone”. This is suggesting that she has two sides to herself, in the day she wears old fashioned Women’s clothing, and at night time she wears Men’s clothing. In the daytime her persona is very feminine and harmless and at night time her persona is very different, she believes she is a man. The quote “the eyes in the mirror knew that” shows that she is trying to suppress herself, but she is aware of reality and what people may think, also the next line “but she could stare them out” is more evidence that she is trying to suppress herself but it is getting the better of her and that she doesn’t care what people think. She is simply a woman who cannot accept herself to be a man is not a lie, she craves to be someone else, also the fact that she believes herself to be a man Is not a lie, and she does not intend to deceive anyone and does not desire to harm those around her by dressing as a man. By pretending to be a man, Susan is merely fulfilling a fantasy and is not directly harming others and so she is displayed in a sympathetic manner. At the beginning of the second stanza, Duffy writes “of course a job, a humdrum city flat; of course, the usual friends. Lover? Sometimes.” This shows each individual aspect of society and slows the poem to a monotonous pace; it is a reflection of a “humdrum city” life. As far as society is concerned, she leads a substandard and normal life. This evokes sympathy from the reader as she is shown as normal, and lives life the way we do, she is also
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