Female Dominance In Salome By Carol Ann Duffy
Duffy establishes female dominance and challenges gender expectation through the assertion of power of her female characters, defined as the unconventional rebellion against male dominance. Duffy’s poem ‘Salome’ rids the exploitation of women as she celebrates the behaviour of Salome which transgresses moral and social code to “reiterate the dangerous nature of female desire”. Women have been positioned as the inferior gender that are expected to be subservient towards men, and are commonly regarded as victims. However, in ‘Salome,’ we see these stereotypes of women being confronted and presented as men now the victims, and masculinity is dead, metaphorically and symbolically. Duffy satirically addressing the conventional idea of women being objectified through Salome’s objectification of men as items to serve women for their own gains which are easily disposable; ‘his head on a platter’ highlighting the antagonism she holds towards men. Simultaneously, Duffy is challenging our perception of a stereotypical conventional woman, by conveying the idea that women are not passive creatures, but rather can manipulate and have an upper-hand on men by asserting the supremacy and potential violence nature of women to transcend gender conventions.
Similarly, in the poem Delilah Duffy challenges our stereotypic perception of docile women by subverting the patriarchy into a matriarchy, breaking away from the male dominant culture through marking the female the narrative voice. The use of the pronoun ‘I’ and ‘Me’ and ‘you’ to address the reader, indicate that Delilah has now taken charge of the way the poem is being told. Additionally, Duffy conveys her resentment of the materialistic attitude which regards women as a possession and explores this through the reversal of the idea women are part of a social machine who should function accordingly to what men want them to do; ‘he guided my hand.’ The man applicant is offered a ‘hand’ of a woman to do whatever she tells it, personified with characteristics of mechanical activity, reinforcing the notion that men are likened to a mechanical object, required to abide women and serve them continuously whilst emphasizing how she holds the power over the way the story progresses and actively asserting herself as the one who has done the deed to Samson; she is the dominant voice in the poem. Duffy further accentuates female dominance in the exploitation of the characteristically phallocentric myth of ‘Circe’ as she employs the phrase “pig” to substitute males in the position of a pig. By degrading the male gender to the level of an animal, rendering them as insignificant creatures, Duffy presents the prominence of women.
The female dominance is also extended to ‘Mrs. Beast’ which showcases a different relationship in which the female is represented as actively seeking the beast, taking a confident role. This is seen through her assertion of her voice as the poem is told through her narrative. Throughout the poem, the female voice is harsh and blunt, demonstrating her apparent rejection of the stereotypically weak nature associated with females. For example, ‘I should know they’re bastards when they’re princesses’ establishes her confrontational attitude towards men as well as making it seem like an extensive conversation by addressing the outside protagonists as ‘they’re’ and the use of pronouns ‘you’ to address female gender as one collective unit and making them part of the exchange of gossip. Silence for women means to remain uncritical towards male power, to be obedient and accept inferiority. Gossip is essentially criticizing, a means of control to uphold the patriarchal system. The Derogatory language women use to talk about their husbands reinforces the aspect of gossip which presents a threat to society. Through employing the women’s language ‘I had the language girls’ establishes the female as possessing the language and thus establishes them within the literary cannon. “Duffy’s sisterly intervention enables a variety of female personae to cast doubt on the stories which ‘immobilise’ them.”
Thus Duffy is inducing a satire upon male opposition to female emancipiaitation and voicing contemptuous fears about the possible dangers and consequences of female equality. The role reversal of males as inferior echoes the evolution in social view’s in women’s roles that occurred in the suffragette’s movement, and allows Duffy to present a woman who holds the angry voice of female opposition, thereby rejecting feminine stereotypes that limit women to certain characteristics that place them in inferior positions.
