Little Red Cap

Little Red Cap is based on the fairy tale story known as Little Red Riding Hood, but was originally titled Little Red Cap by Wilhelm Grimm. Duffy altered the original storyline to create a dominant female character, but the poem can also be read as an autobiography of an important period of time in her life. Duffy related herself to the story of Little Red Cap to the story of her own first love. This piece of poetry is a version of Duffy herself, as it is inspired by her first relationship, and about a young girl becoming a poet. She used her relationship with poet Adrian Henri to create her version of Little Red Cap. 

Imagery

• The title of the poem grabs your attention and reminds you of Little Red Riding Hood, a children’s story. This is clever, as it sets the readers mind to thinking about the story, which means that the reader can connect all of the similarities in the poem to the children’s story, for example; “What big eyes he had! What teeth!”
• A good example of the imagery Duffy has used in this poem is, “Away from home, to a dark tangled thorny place”. The way she has used these words makes the image very clear for the reader to imagine exactly what the Wolf’s lair must be like, a nasty place, away from the protection and safety of her home.St

Structure 

• The stanzas throughout the poem are irregular. Stanza 5 is the longest one in the poem and the rushed enjambment of the words gives the reader a sense of excitement.

Mrs Midas

The myth on which the poem is based is the story first told by Ovid in his “Metamorphoses”. Midas, king of Phrygia, is granted a wish by the god Dionysos and his greed prompts him to ask that everything he touches will turn to gold. The wish comes true but Midas soon comes to regret his choice, given that life becomes impossible if every morsel of food one touches changes into hard yellow metal. Midas is forced to ask Dionysos to reverse the spell.

• The poem comprises eleven six-line unrhymed stanzas.
•  It reads almost like prose with plenty of run-on lines and not much evidence of rhythm in the diction. 
• However, there is plenty of rhythm in the ideas, as concepts build on each other and relationships between concepts become clear to the reader.
• This poem is written in the form of a dramatic monologue from a female perspective, similar to the other poems in The World’s Wife collection.

Main Themes

• Greed is  a recurring theme as this is what motivated Midas to make his wish in the first place. The damaging effects are portrayed throughout with both husband and wife, in the end, being left alone to suffer the effects of wishing to possess a substance which ultimately feeds no one.
• Consequences of our actions is a prevalent theme as both Midas and his wife pay the price of not really taking the time to deliberate and think through what would follow if they chose one action over another.
• Loneliness and solitude are all that is left for both characters by the end of the poem as a result of one selfish act. A life of solitude is chosen as soon as Midas is granted his foolish and selfish wish.

Tone

• One way Duffy achieves a satirical tone is through colloquial language and use of uncomplicated language.  Mrs Midas talks as if she were an ordinary housewife, not that of a legendary king.  e.g she is gently mocking herself in the ninth stanza where she says “And then I came home, the woman who married the fool, who wished for gold”.
• Carol Ann Duffy uses a lot of imagery to convey the satirical tone. In the fourth stanza, Mrs Midas describers her husband “spitting out the teeth of the rich” as he eats corn on the cob.  The kernels turn to gold, resembling gold capped teeth of the wealthy.  

Mrs Faust

Faust is the protagonist of a classic German legend; a highly successful scholar but one dissatisfied with his life who makes a pact with the Devil, exchanging his soul for unlimited knowledge and worldly pleasures. Faust and the adjective Faustian imply a situation in which an ambitious person surrenders moral integrity in order to achieve power and success for a delimited term.  

Form of Poem

• 9 lines
• 15 stanzas
• Length of Lines: 3 syllables-12 syllables
• Free verse poem
• Fast-moving rhythm
• Slant Rhyme (abrupt and snappy like her life)eg. “Then take his lust/ to Soho in cab,/ to say the least,/ lay the ghost,”
• End Rhyme and Full Rhymeeg.“way”, “day”, “hay” 
• Internal Rhyme
  eg. "returned enlightened" 

                Tone of Poem

          •Mocking Tone

            eg. “had a facelift,/ had my breast enlarged,/ my buttocks tightened;/ went to China, Thailand, Africa returned enlightened.”

         •Sarcastic and Ironic Tone

         •Verbal Irony: “Faust was Cardinal, Pope,/knew more than God;”

        •Situational Irony: “I bought a kidney/ with my credit card”