IBEnglish Language & LiteratureDPEnglish A: Language and LiteratureHLRevision Notes11. Literary Texts: PoetryCarol Ann DuffyMrs Faust

Mrs Faust (DP IB English A: Language and Literature: HL): Revision Note

Jenny Brown

Written by: Jenny Brown

Reviewed by: Nick Redgrove

Updated on

This study guide to Carol Ann Duffy’s poem ‘Mrs Faust’ contains:

  • Overview

  • Authorial purpose

  • Authorial choices and textual features

  • Themes

  • Connections to other Duffy poems

Overview

  • The poem was first published in 1999 in the collection The World’s Wife

  • The collection is poems from the perspectives of women who were the relatives of famous men 

  • Duffy offers a retelling of their experiences to challenge the dominant male perspective

  • ‘Mrs Faust’ is a retelling of German folklore

    • In the original story, Faust makes a pact with the devil

    • He gains wealth and knowledge in exchange for his soul

Authorial purpose

  • Duffy’s aim with the collection is to challenge dominant male perspectives and narratives

  • She offers multiple and complex versions of womanhood

  • ‘Mrs Faust’ is a satirical retelling of a story of greed from a female perspective

  • The poem highlights and mocks the emptiness of materialism

  • In keeping with the other poems in the collection, it suggests women have subtly manipulated men to navigate the power dynamics of patriarchal norms

Authorial choices and textual features

Form 

  • ‘Mrs Faust’ is mostly a free verse poem

    • There are moments of rhyme in each stanza

    • These appear at the end of the stanzas, often providing a surprising detail

  • It has fifteen nine-line stanzas

    • The lines are very short

    • The poem reads at times like a list of events and acquisitions

  • The poem is a satirical, dramatic monologue 

Structure

  • The title alludes to the figure in German folklore

    • Duffy creates the character of Faust’s wife

  • The tone is casual and uncaring

  • Caesura and enjambment feature frequently

    • The poem flows like a recounting of events

    • The pauses elevate the satire by providing surprising details for the reader to focus on

Language

  • ‘Mrs Faust’ is an allusion to the story of Faust

    • There are other allusions to fairy tales and places throughout the poem

    • These allusions give a sense that the story of greed is ancient and unchanged in modern times

  • The speaker uses imagery of the trappings of wealth

    • This situates the poem in the contemporary 

    • It also links common and familiar types of consumption to the absurdity of Faust’s greed

  • Faust becomes a symbol of Western, masculine power and greed

  • Repetition in the form of anaphora and epistrophe accentuates the unthinking accumulation of goods, people, power and lifestyle

  • Asyndeton and tricolons work to emphasise the matter-of-fact nature of the marriage and the escalation of consumption

Themes

The failure of materialism to provide fulfilment

Duffy is often critical of unthinking greed and consumption. Becoming an adult and writing in Thatcher’s Britain (see more in Contextual Understanding), she critiques the equation of wealth with value and consumption with status. ‘Mrs Faust’ is a satirical exploration of these concerns. It adds a layer of gendered power dynamics to the issue; Faust becomes a symbol for institutional power and wealth largely populated by men.  

Theme 

Quotation

Analysis and interpretation

‘First things first -/

I married Faust./We met as students,/shacked up, split up,/made up, hitched up,/ got a mortgage on a house,/flourished academically,/BA. MA. Ph.D. No kids.’

  • The poem opens in an informal, matter-of-fact tone

  • The couple’s relationship and life together are summarised in short, sharp sentences

    • The repetition and asyndeton make it feel like ticking boxes and fulfilling expectations rather than feeling any depth of emotion 

  • The caesura of ‘No kids.’ seems similarly cold and matter-of-fact

    • But the reader suspects there is more hidden detail behind such a simple statement

‘Fast cars. A boat with sails./ second home in Wales./The latest toys – computers,/mobile phones. Prospered.’

  • The parataxis and listing of the couple’s acquisitions echo the listing of their relationship

    • Thus, relationships and consumerism are aligned as means to status

‘I grew to love lifestyle,/ not the life./ He grew to love the kudos,/ not the wife.’

  • The rhyming couplet paradoxically sums up with ease an empty and soulless marriage

    • Duffy satirises the pursuit of status at the cost of true connection

‘I smelled cigar smoke,/ hellish, oddly sexy, not allowed./ I heard Faust and the other/ laugh aloud.’

  • The speaker is excluded from a male power-broking meeting

    • Cigars symbolise traditional stereotypes of masculine wealth and status

‘First politics…then banks…Faust was Cardinal, Pope’

  • Faust’s absurd acquisition of wealth and power after his pact with the devil is symbolic of patriarchal institutions

    • The political, economic and religious institutions are traditionally upholders of patriarchal order

‘Invested in smart bombs…cloned sheep./ Faust surfed the internet/ for like-minded Bo Peep ’

  • The fields of science and technology are now included in these spheres of masculine power

    • The allusion to cloning and online dating sets the poem in contemporary times

‘had a facelift,/had my breasts enlarged,/ my buttocks tightened;/ went to China, Thailand, Africa,/ returned enlightened.’

  • Both the speaker and her husband pursue materialism to fill the emptiness in their lives

  • However, his materialism is in the fields of power and influence, while hers is in the fields of aesthetic beauty and well-being

    • Duffy critiques both but also subtly comments on the different sources of power available to men and women

  • The appropriation of and blase attitude to other cultures’ spirituality is satirised in the rhyming of ‘tightened’ and enlightened’

‘the Lear jet, the helipad,/ the loot, et cet, et cet,/ the lot – / to me.’

  • The alliteration, listing and punctuation combine to make the inheritance seem so numerous that it is almost difficult to read

  • The casual tone and use of ‘etc’ emphasise how unimportant such acquisitions are to the super wealthy

  • The caesura and the short, two-word line make the ‘to me’ sound triumphant

  • The speaker has succeeded in acquiring all the material wealth and getting rid of her hideous husband

    • Duffy hints here at the subtle power of women to manipulate the patriarchal norms to get what they want

‘the clever, cunning, callous bastard/ didn't have a soul to sell’

  • The irony here is twofold

    • Faust tricked the devil by not having a soul

    • Excessive materialism is equated with soullessness

Connections to other Duffy poems

When studying Duffy’s poetry, it is important to make connections across her work, as many poems explore similar ideas through different speakers and situations.

Power

Duffy explores the power dynamics embedded in patriarchal norms and the culture that comes from them. She seeks to overthrow or at least prompt us to challenge them by offering alternative, female-based perspectives on well-known tales.

Here, the speaker wins out over her greedy husband and the devil himself. She has an understanding of power dynamics and successfully forges her own path of success. 

'Mrs Midas'

'Little Red Cap'

'Pygmalion’s Bride'

  • Here, Duffy examines how the speaker takes control of a situation after being ignored previously

  • In reclaiming her power, the speaker banishes her husband and the selfish greed he represents

  • Duffy explores female sexuality and the power necessary to navigate patriarchal norms and desires

  • The speaker powerfully overthrows the metaphorical wolf-man to reclaim independence and agency

  • Here, Duffy examines the power of the speaker to manipulate male desire for passivity

  • The speaker refuses to be an object

  • In overthrowing this role, she reclaims her independence

Sources:

Duffy, C.A. (1999) The World’s Wife. London: Picador.

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Jenny Brown

Author: Jenny Brown

Expertise: Content Writer

Dr. Jenny is an expert English and ToK educator with a PhD from Trinity College Dublin and a Master’s in Education. With 20 years of experience—including 15 years in international secondary schools—she has served as an IB Examiner for both English A and ToK. A published author and professional editor, Jenny specializes in academic writing and curriculum design. She currently creates and reviews expert resources for Save My Exams, leveraging her expertise to help students worldwide master the IBDP curriculum.

Nick Redgrove

Reviewer: Nick Redgrove

Expertise: English Content Creator

Nick is a graduate of the University of Cambridge and King’s College London. He started his career in journalism and publishing, working as an editor on a political magazine and a number of books, before training as an English teacher. After nearly 10 years working in London schools, where he held leadership positions in English departments and within a Sixth Form, he moved on to become an examiner and education consultant. With more than a decade of experience as a tutor, Nick specialises in English, but has also taught Politics, Classical Civilisation and Religious Studies.