Compare the ways which gender dynamics are presented in “eat me” to explore conflicting representations of women. (C grade answer)

Compare the ways which gender dynamics are presented in “eat me” to explore conflicting representations of women. (C grade answer)

 

Both Agbabi and Duffy use multifarious methods to portray various representations of women. Both poems have an explicitly feminist tone. Agbabi focuses mainly on the submission of the female to the superior male in a society in which is sophisticated and advanced. Duffy focuses on how women's bodies provide a map, defining their identity and physically wearing woman's experiences, both historically and environmentally. In a similar way, we see that a lack of power leads to confusion and unhappiness, through a veil of poetic language, as they attempt to try to break free. Whilst both poems heavily depend on the body as an allegory, gaining knowledge and power in their feminine identities at the end of the poems, Agbabi uses food to show how inferior they are, whereas Duffy uses the body to show a path in which her life takes to become an independent woman.

In both poems, it is evident that both poetic writers have to grapple with the idea of becoming an independent woman. In “the map-woman” the writer discovers she needs to understand that her skin is adapting to her as she gets older. The poem is an extended metaphor in which 'a woman's skin was a map of the town … where she'd grown from a child'; this shows the woman's experiences are literally inscribed upon her body. The woman conforms to traditional views of female modesty as 'when she went out, she covered it up', this is also showing that it is very outdated and it is possible that it may link in with the Islamic view of modesty and restraint towards men. The listing of female clothing, 'mitts or a muff, with leggings, trousers or jeans' includes both old-fashioned items, 'shawl' or 'muff', and modern ones, 'leggings' and 'jeans', suggesting that the woman's experience outdoes time. This also shows that she had out-dated traditional views or was brought up in a time period where this was normal. The references to 'birthmark, tattoo', images indicating permanent and lifelong marks are juxtaposed with a series of verbs with inferences of growth and change; 'grew', 'binged', 'slimmed' and 'begin' , these all show the growth of a person. The use of “slimmed/binged” suggests a woman as a male would care less for their looks and appearance. The internal rhyme of 'tattoo' and 'grew' and 'skin', 'thin' and 'begin', the para-rhyme of 'precise' and 'precis' and the assonance of short 'i' sounds in 'skin', 'binged', 'thin' and 'begin' all highlight the mutability of the woman's skin as it adapts.

 

  In Agbabi poem “EAT ME” the female is showing how she is undermined and inferior to her counter-part. The poem “EAT ME” is an extended metaphor for the superiority of the male in which “I ate,did what I was told…his pleasure…his Jacuzzi…he said”. These quotations all show how the man in question was able to dominate and control the woman. This connotes that the female has always and will always be inferior to the male, which has been the tradition since the Neanderthal period in which the man would hunt and create fires whereas the woman would cook and look after children; similarly to the stereotype. The use of “his” in 1^st person makes it seem that she realizes the problem what he is doing to her but cannot escape from it just like women historically.

In Agbabi’s poem there is also a continuous reference to the number 3; “thirty, three layers, thirty-nine”, the continuous reference to 3 could suggest many things. One main connection is with male domination. The holy trinity is 3 subjects: father, son and holy spirit”, due to the male domination of this quote it may have a underlying link with the poem. The man acts as her father as she is too fat to do anything and the son is the food which is being looked after. The reference to god is possible through the death of the man so he may have been religious, but it is never dictated.

In conclusion both Duffy and Agbabi use different techniques to show gender dynamics within society. The main difference between the poems is that in “the map woman”, the woman tries to break free whereas in “EAT ME”, the woman is always totally submissive.