To what extent, in terms of subject matter and style, is Demeter an appropriate

conclusion to the collection?

At first glance, Demeter may seem the antithesis of the rest of The World's Wife''.
This is a collection concerned with subverting myths as summarised nicely in the
opening lines of Mrs Beast: 'These myths going round, these legends, fairytales.
I'll put them straight'

Whereas Demeter is not a subversion, rather it tells the story of the return of
Demeter's daughter Persephone from a mother's point of view.

Also, the collection is often criticised as being anti-men given its role in giving a
voice to the women who are often forgotten in a worl that lionises men.
Considering Mrs. Aesop who calls her husband an asshole or Mrs. Sisyphus who
describes her husband as a dork, an absolute berk, whereas Demeter doesn't
even mention a male figure.

However this does not mean the subject matter of the poem is entirely unfamiliar.
We are looking at a mother's love ''bringing all springs to her mother's house''
which is also examined (in all its ferocity) in Queen Herod ''No man i swore, will
make her shed one tear''. There is also evidence of strong, intelligent women in
most of the poems - indeed Mrs. Darwin suggests she had the idea of evolution
seven or more years before the origin of species and Mrs. Eurydice wrote the
blurb on the back of Big O's books.

Also the themes of sadness and loneliness which are present in Demeter before
the turn (''my broken heart'') is also present in Medusa: ''Wasn't I beautiful?
Wasn't I fragrant and young? Look at me now'' and in Mrs. Midas ''...I miss most,
even now, his hands, his warm hands on my skin, his touch''.

Thus, the pathos of the early stanzas of Demeter ''I sat in my cold room'' which
may at first seem atypical of the collection is also present elsewhere - in Medusa
and Mrs. Midas, as discussed, and also in Anna Hathaway: ''I hold him in the
casket of my widow's head as he held me upon that next best bed''. The same is
true of the joy at the end of the poem (''I swear the air softened and warmed as
she moved''). We also see the celebration of love in Anne Hathaway (''My living,
laughing love'').

Thus, in terms of subject matter while a subversive millitant poem like Mrs. Beast
(the penultimate poem) may be more typical of the collection, the gentleness and
happiness presented to us in Demeter gives a pleasing conclusion (in musical
terms it is somewhat like a coda, a quiet ending after the volume of the
symphony) indeed in Radio 4's book club Duffy herself says she ''wanted to end
the collection on a note of joy''.

The same can also be said of the style of the poem - a softer subject matter
obviously requires a gentler style, and while in basic terms the poem is written
like the others (with the exception of the composite voice of the Kray sisters) as a
female dramatic monologue otherwise it seems, on first glance, very different to
the majority of the collection. It does not contain the colloquialisms and bathos
typical of many poems, for example: ''Bollocks, I'd done all the typing myself''
(Eurydice) or ''Stuff that'' (Thetis). Nor does it contain the obscenities present in
Deliliah (''He fucked me again'') or Mrs. Quasimodo (''You pig. You stupid cow.
You fucking buffalo'').

However, Demeter is not without Duffy's trademark wordplay. She gives the
phrase ''to break the ice'' double meaning, referring to both the literal ice of her
''cold, stone room'' and conversational ''ice'' because she's trying to break it with
words. We have seen this before in Little Red Cap (''I stitched him up'') and pilot's
wife (''Eyes to die for'').

A wonderful image Duffy creates of Demeter using her ''broken heart'' to break
the ice, is also typical of her style (consider the golden pear in Mrs. Midas
described as ''like a lightbulb. On'') and the use of objects or weather as
metaphors for emotional states (for example ''granite, flint'') is also present in
other poems (''ice on the trees'' Queen Herod). The filmic vision implicit in the line
''She came from a long, long way'' (Like a long shot in a film) is also there in
From Mrs. Tiresias where the asterisk that follows ''I passed out'' suggests ''fade
to black''.

The structure (a sonnet) is also familiar from Anne Hathaway, Frau Freud and
The Devil's wife and in the case of Demeter and Anne Hathaway is particularly
apt for a declaration of love. Both of these poems close with moving, rhyming
couplets. In Demeter's case: ''The blue sky smiling, non too soon, with the small
shy mouth of a new moon''. The pathetic fallacy involved in the personification of
the ''Blue sky'' and the ''new moon'' adds to the beauty of the imagery of new life
(and in the case of the moon fertility) giving an impression of purity of love.

Internal rhyme is another stylistic method typical of Duffy - consider Frau Freud :
''Dick, prick, /dipstick and wick'' and the open vowels of ''bare feet'', ''I swear'' and
''the air'' create a beautiful asonance (similar to ''my body now a softer rhyme'' in
Anne Hathaway) enhanced by the soft alliterationm of the ''small, shy mouth''.

Demeter starts with bleakness and ends exactly as Diffy intended with a ''sense
of leaving and walking into light'' (Radio 4, Book Club). We can not help but
assume she was thinking of her own daughter, who was four years old at the
time, when she wrote it. As we have seen this poem is not entirely typical of the
collection in terms of subject matter and style (though not atypical either) but as
the seemingly most autobiographical poem, beautifully capturing the positive
elements of a mother's love (just as The Devil's Wife perfectly captures its
antithesis) it seems a well chosen conclusion to the collection.