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On your desk · Poetry · National 5
Medusa
Carol Ann Duffy
The big picture
A mythological speaker describes jealousy growing into a power that destroys what she sees. Her threatening address is interrupted by vulnerable questions about the beauty and intimacy she has lost.
“A suspicion, a doubt, a jealousy”
The sequence builds from uncertainty to consuming possessiveness. It presents the transformation as something developing within the mind, linking the physical monster to a recognisable emotional process.
- Whose voice are we hearing?
- A dramatic monologue brings the reader close to a speaker whose pain does not make her account reliable.
- How does it develop?
- The transformations increase in scale as the gaze becomes more intense. The ending turns towards the lover and the speaker’s remembered self, revealing vulnerability beneath the threats.
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