History

• In history, the subjects age is reflected through a semantic field of of worn down language such as "shuffled" and "rag of a nightdress"
• The subject of History goes against ideas of feminine beauty as she has "not a tooth in her head"
• The way the Subject of History "Shuffled" is reflective of the slow, drawn out passage of time
• The subject of the poem "smelling of pee" is symbolic of the neglect women face through the eyes of history
• Caesura at the end of the first stanza following "smelling of pee" creates metrical pause reflecting the reaction of shock evoked from the reader following this quote
• Alliteration in the second stanza "hung from a hook" creates a laboured sound to reflect the effort that comes from physical activity for older people
• caesura in the 3rd stanza after the phrase "she was history" creates metrical pause to emphasise the pun / double meaning behind the phrase
• The 3rd stanza follows the subject bearing witness to Jesus being hung "from the cross" from the Virgin Mary's perspective to symbolise her as a maternal and holy figure
• the third stanza alludes to the resurrection of Jesus as witnessed by the "fisherman" who "swore he was back from the dead"
• Duffy uses asyndetic listing in stanza 4 "Jerusalem, Constantinople, Sicily" to quicken the meter reflect the quick passage of time
• Within the poem the woman observes history taking place around her but is not an active participant displaying how women are not permitted to take part in major events in history
• The speaker uses asyndetic listing "Bannockburn, Passchendaele, Babi Yar, Vietnam" to quicken the metre and emphasise the vast number of events the subject has been witness to
• The subject of the poem is presented as voiceless as although she had "heard the last words if the martyrs burnt at the stake" she does not pass them onto the reader showing how women are silenced as the woman has no power to relay what she has seen
• the poem links ideas of childlike innocence of "children waved their little hands from the trains" with death of "blew out his brains" as it is an allusion it Hitler's suicide and therefore Nazi atrocities during world war 2 such as the holocaust to show the harsh realities of the world this woman has bared witness to showing how women are exposed to observe pain and suffering in the world around them with the rhyme of "trains" and "brains" linking these two juxtaposing ideas
• The imagery of the "empty house" in the last stanza acts as a reminder to the reader of the subject's extreme loneliness after witnessing so much, she has nobody to share it with
• The "empty house" symbolises her memory, desolate, lonely, and with copious spaces for memories to occupy; "fresh graffiti sprayed on her door" and "shit wrapped in newspaper" shows just how neglected this woman is and symbolises how her memories have been cast aside and ruined over time as nobody cared to take care of them, similar to the crumbling house that is falling apart showing how women are not valued by society
• The poem sees countless events from history being compounded into one woman showing how women are burdened by others in society and made to carry the emotional weight of others
• The poem expands on the feminist idea of "Herstory" which rewrites historical events from a female perspective to put an end to women being obscured within the retelling of history
• the poem is 7 stanza each measuring 6 lines