Standing Female Nude (DP IB English A: Language and Literature: HL): Revision Note

Theme 

Quotation

Analysis and interpretation

Objectification of women

‘Six hours like this for a few francs’

• The opening line immediately sets up a matter-of-fact tone in the face of discomfort:

  • The contrast between the large amount of time and the small amount of money is emphasised with the alliteration 

‘Belly nipple arse in the window light,/he drains the colour from me.’

• The speaker’s body is exposed to the artist’s gaze:

  • The asyndeton and colloquial language strip her of dignity or intellect

  • She is reduced to a series of body parts 

• The artist is referred to as ‘he’

• The paradoxical image of an artist draining colour rather than creating art with colour is both literal and metaphorical:

  • Braque was a Cubist artist and painted in muted colours

  • The line also suggests the artist cannot capture her vitality and the reality of her lived experience

‘I shall be represented analytically and hung/in great museums. The bourgeoisie will coo/at such an image of a river-whore. They call it Art.’

• The speaker understands the art world and its hypocrisy

• The core purpose of the poem is to give voice to the woman:

  • Duffy affords her intelligence, wit and disdain

  • She prompts the reader to question their assumptions about those who function at the margins of society

• The juxtaposition of ‘great museums’ and ‘bourgeoisie’ with ‘river-whore’ emphasises the societal gap between the classes

• However, the speaker does not see herself as less than the middle class:

  • She mocks their hypocrisy and ignorance of reality

  • The connotation of ‘coo’ suggests vacuous pleasure

  • The caesura and capitalisation of ‘Art’ critique the art world and its snobbery

‘You’re getting thin,/ Madam, this is not good. My breasts hang/ slightly low, the studio is cold.’

• The speaker’s body is a mere object to be observed and converted to the canvas in parts:

  • Her hunger and cold are only irritations to the artist

‘There are times he does not concentrate/ and stiffens for my warmth. Men think of their mothers./ He possesses me on canvas as he dips the brush/ repeatedly into the paint.’

• The speaker blurs the objectification of women in art with the objectification of their bodies sexually:

  • The artist is aroused by her body

  • The paintbrush is a phallic symbol for the male gaze that dominates women and reduces them to objects of desire

‘Little men,/ you’ve not the money for the arts I sell.’

• The speaker overturns the snobbery of art:

  • She equates her work and her body as art that the artist cannot afford

  • Juxtaposed with the ‘Art’ that hangs in the gallery, the speaker imbues hers with a reality and humanity that the artist and the snobby gallery goers cannot appreciate

‘Don’t talk./ My smile confuses him. These artists/ take themselves too seriously. At night I fill myself/ with wine and dance around the bars.’

• The artist strives to control the speaker through orders, his paintbrush and his supposed superiority

• But she resists this:

  • Her smile and laughter contrast with his seriousness

  • The imagery of her dancing and drinking is juxtaposed with the cold stillness of the artist’s studio

  • Life, not art, is the source of warmth and joy

‘I say/ Twelve francs and get my shawl. It does not look like me.’

• The poem closes with the speaker ordering the artist in a reclaiming of her power

• The caesura in the closing line adds impact and a tone of certain finality:

  • The artist has failed to capture the reality and vitality of the speaker

  • Hypocritical and elitist views fail to see the truth and value in those deemed inferior 

‘Warming her Pearls’

‘Demeter’

‘Anne Hathaway’

• In giving a working-class, queer girl a voice in a near-ballad, Duffy reminds us of the depth of emotion and intellect that we all have, regardless of status

• She represents women in her art to elevate them in ways that challenge the traditional norms of patriarchal society

• In this poem, she strives to represent the power of a mother’s love

• The poem celebrates and elevates maternal love to the level of high art

• It links it to the natural and eternal cycles of nature

• It reminds us that it is life-giving and regenerative

• In this poem, she strives to represent the power of love between equals

• The poem celebrates female sensuality. It is a representation of the power and beauty of this