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On your desk · Poetry · Higher
Mrs Midas
Carol Ann Duffy
The big picture
Duffy retells the golden-touch myth through the wife left to manage its consequences. Domestic comedy gradually gives way to separation, a lost imagined family and grief for ordinary physical affection.
“It feeds no one”
Gold is exposed as useless beside basic human needs. The short statement cuts through its glamorous associations and reveals the practical emptiness of the husband’s apparently magnificent gift.
- Whose voice are we hearing?
- A conversational dramatic monologue gives the traditionally overlooked wife authority over the story.
- How does it develop?
- The narrative progresses from an ordinary evening to disruption and separation. Its closing tenderness complicates the earlier jokes: recognising selfishness does not make love disappear.
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