Medusa (SQA National 5 English): Revision Note

Here is a guide to Carol Ann Duffy’s poem ‘Medusa’ to help prepare you for the SQA National 5 English exam. It includes:

• Overview: a breakdown of the poem, including its possible meanings and interpretations

• Writer’s methods: an exploration of Duffy’s techniques and methods

• Understanding the poem: an exploration of the themes and ideas within Duffy’s poem

• Linking the poems: an understanding of how ‘Medusa’ connects with Duffy’s other prescribed poems for the Scottish text section

Overview

In order to answer questions on any poem it is vital that you understand what it is about. This section includes:

• An overview of the poem

• A ‘translation’ of the poem, section-by-section

• A commentary of each of these sections, outlining Carol Ann Duffy’s intention and message

‘Medusa’ overview

Carol Ann Duffy’s poem ‘Medusa’ is a dramatic monologue narrated by the Greek mythological character Medusa, which explores how jealousy, mistrust and emotional pain have turned her into a monster. Medusa’s monstrous nature can be read as giving a voice to the mythical character, or as an expression of the way anyone can be transformed by emotional suffering.

‘Medusa’ translation

Lines 1-5

Translation

• The narrator, Medusa, describes how her suspicion, doubt and jealousy have caused a physical transformation

• Her hair feels like it has turned into snakes and her thoughts feel like they are hissing and spitting on her scalp

Duffy’s intention

• Duffy opens the poem by linking three negative emotions together — suspicion, doubt and jealousy — and showing how they combine in Medusa’s mind to become a single malevolent entity: 

  • This mixture of emotions is so overwhelming that it gains the power to transform the narrator physically

• Duffy uses imagery and sibilance to convey the intense pain of Medusa’s emotional state:

  • The sibilance of “hissed”, “spat” and “scalp” suggests the threat of an angry snake

Lines 6-11

Translation

• Once, Medusa was young and fresh, like a bride, with sweet-smelling breath

• Now, her breath has gone sour and smells bad in her lungs

• Her mouth and tongue are disgusting and her teeth have become yellow fangs

• Her eyes are full of tears shaped like bullets

• She mockingly asks her addressee if he is terrified

Duffy’s intention

• Duffy uses alliteration to show how one state can turn instantly into another: 

  • The ‘br’ sounds in “bride’s breath” and the ‘s’ sounds of “soured, stank” are placed next to each other to demonstrate Medusa’s transformation

• The poet evokes rottenness to convey Medusa’s self-loathing:

  • The “grey bags” and the repetition of “foul” suggest something old and withered

  • Medusa’s “yellow fanged” mouth reinforces the snake imagery

• The “bullet tears” imply the emotional violence that has been inflicted on Medusa — and that, possibly, she may wish to inflict in her turn

Lines 12-17

Translation

• Medusa tells her lover that he should be terrified, because it’s him she loves

• She calls him a perfect man, a Greek god and tells him he belongs to her

• She knows he will leave, be unfaithful to her, and go away from her

• For her, it’s better if he was stone, so he can’t hurt her

Duffy’s intention

• Duffy implies that Medusa’s love has turned into something far more dangerous and that her lover should “Be terrified.”

• The poet’s descriptions of Medusa’s lover and his actions mirror each other, implying that one thing will lead inevitably to another:

  • He is a “perfect man, Greek God, my own”, and therefore he will “go, betray me, stray / from home.”

Lines 18-23

Translation

• Everything Medusa looks at turns to stone:

  • First, a bee turns into a pebble, then a bird turns into a handful of gravel, and both fall to the ground

Duffy’s intention

• Duffy demonstrates how pain and self-loathing can destroy anything vibrant and alive:

  • The “grey pebble” and “dusty gravel” that the bee and the bird become evoke grave-like imagery, suggesting the death of love as well as the creatures’ deaths

Lines 24-29

Translation

• The creatures that Medusa turns to stone increase in size, a cat and then a pig are transformed

Duffy’s intention

• Duffy conveys the disillusionment of betrayal by using evocative language:

  • Like the bowl of milk and the pig, her narrator’s emotions are “shattered” and metaphorically turned to “shit”:

    • The alliteration of the “sh” sounds in these descriptions reinforces their connection

Lines 30-35

Translation

• When Medusa looks in the mirror, she sees a Gorgon, a monstrous vision caused by the pain of spoiled love

• When she stares at a dragon, it turns into a mountain with fire pouring out of its side

Duffy’s intention

• Duffy continues to convey the pain of jealousy and betrayal with imagery evoking rottenness and disgust:

  • Medusa’s love has “gone bad” and the dragon’s fire is “spewed / from the mouth of a mountain” in an image evoking both vomit and erupting rage

Lines 36-42

Translation

• Finally, Medusa addresses her lover directly, comparing his heart to a shield and his tongue to a sword

• Medusa suspects the addressee has other lovers, who she refers to as his “girls”

• She asks him if he remembers how young and beautiful she was once

• Her final command, “Look at me now”, is either a comparison between how she was then and how she appears now, or a direct instruction to her lover to look at her so she can turn him to stone as well

Duffy’s intention

• Duffy presents Medusa’s lover, the cause of her fury, as deceitful and hurtful:

  • His metaphorical “shield for a heart” implies he conceals his real feelings and the metaphor of his “sword for a tongue” implies his vicious, cutting words

• Duffy’s final, ambiguous line illustrates Medusa’s shifting identity, because her meaning is as unclear as her monstrous transformation

Writer’s methods

This section is divided into three parts: form, structure and language. When you write about a poem, aim to expand your interpretation of what the poet is writing about by exploring how they present their ideas and why they have made the technical choices they have. 

Focusing on the poet’s ideas and how they express them will gain you far more marks than examining individual poetic techniques. Look at the analysis in the sections below, which is organised by the main themes of ‘Medusa’ and demonstrates the methods and reasons for Carol Ann Duffy’s choices of:

• Form

• Structure

• Language

Form

‘Medusa’ can be read either as a direct representation of the character from the Greek myth or as an exploration of how emotional suffering can transform anyone’s identity and turn them into a monster.

Structure

Duffy demonstrates, through the structure of the poem, how emotional pain can grow to become overwhelming and almost monstrous.

Language

Duffy uses violent and vivid imagery and techniques like metaphor and sibilance to convey Medusa’s suffering, anger and loss of identity. 

Understanding the poem

Showing a clear understanding of the poem’s main ideas and themes is central to gaining good marks in your SQA National 5 English exam. Aim to demonstrate your thoughtful engagement with the way Duffy uses techniques to get her meaning across. The following main themes of ‘Medusa’ are explored below:

• Anger and loss

• Pain and identity

Anger and loss

• Duffy details how losing somebody’s love provokes self-loathing and intense anger:

  • Her narrator’s initial self-disgust turns to monstrous fury over the course of the poem

  • Her anger is projected outwards in a crescendo of destructive acts

• In the Greek myth that ‘Medusa’ is based on, Medusa could be viewed as being punished for something she has no control over:

  • Her anger leads her to punish others as she has been punished

• Duffy demonstrates how anger and loss turn inwards as well as outwards:

  • Her narrator details how her loss of youth, beauty and freshness are transformed into foulness and threat

• The poet subverts Perseus’ sword and shield imagery of the original Medusa story to illustrate her narrator’s anger towards her lost love

Pain and identity

• Duffy explores how emotional pain can transform a person’s identity completely

• The poet uses a succession of mirroring devices to illustrate how pain disturbs an individual’s self-perception, turning the human into the monstrous: 

  • Medusa details how her pain has turned her from a fresh, young bride into the Gorgon she sees in the mirror

  • Duffy uses mirroring descriptions to emphasise how Medusa’s identity has been transformed, such as when her “bride’s breath soured, stank”

• Duffy’s final, dramatic one-line stanza switches the focus of the poem: 

  • The narrator’s descriptions of her changed identity culminate in a demand that her addressee recognises the negative transformation he has caused

Linking the poems

Students often use Carol Ann Duffy’s poetry to answer the Scottish texts section of the SQA National 5 Critical Reading exam. If you choose, though, you can write your critical essay question on Duffy’s poetry instead. 

If you decide to write about Duffy for the Scottish text section, the final question asks you to demonstrate a wider understanding of her poetry. That means linking more than one poem together by focusing on her ideas and how she communicates them (her techniques). 

The six poems Carol Ann Duffy poems on the SQA syllabus are:

• ‘Before You Were Mine’

• ‘Originally’

• ‘Mrs Midas’

• ‘In Mrs Tilscher’s Class’

• ‘Medusa’

• ‘Havisham’

Here are some parallels between the six poems, organised by shared themes:

Sources:

‘Medusa’ by Carol Ann Duffy (opens in a new tab)