Year 12 IB Extended Essays 2017

Eurydice does not want to go back to “the surface”, she still exists in the Underworld, but she

will never return to the living because she is tied down there. In the final stanza there is a

mention of a “white curtain blowing”, the curtain can move, but it will never go anywhere

because it is attached to the window. The empty chair mentioned in the stanza may represent

where Orpheus used to sit. Orpheus walked away and while the “curtain”, or Eurydice, could

follow him for a short while, eventually it would be pulled back and unable to go any further.

While there is an impenetrable force, such as the Underworld or the power of love,

preventing Eurydice from going with “him” (Orpheus), the barrier could even serve as

protection, Thetis tries to find ways to protect herself from the impenetrable force of her male

oppressor.

In Duffy’s Thetis, the eight line stanzas are end-stopped with each containing a consistent six

lines representing the conformity of Thetis and the male oppression/dominance in order to

make Thetis compliant. Enjambment is used during the paragraph representing hope, then it

is end-stopped at the end of each stanza to signify the sudden crush of hopelessness for

Thetis. It can be assumed that the narrator in this poem is female as in the final stanza she

gives birth and the Greek figure Thetis is female. Duffy uses end-stopped stanzas to represent

the abrupt control that the “groom… fisherman… guy” has over the narrator. As well as

literary techniques such as metaphor and rhyme to convey the themes of domestic abuse and

conformity to contemporary audiences. Eurydice is also end-stopped likely to represent the

suddenness of death, which is an allusion to the Myth of Eurydice and her sudden death.

The title of the poem giving an indication to the reader that there will be heavy references to

Greek Myth, in the first stanza the narrator shrinks “to the size of a bird” – indicating a literal

connection with Thetis’ ability to shape-shift. After the narrator “shrank” she feels the

“squeeze of his fist”, the “fist” is metaphorically the male oppression/dominance over

females and the literal entrapment of Thetis by Peleus. Similar themes are seen in Eurydice

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Goldsmith