Marlyin Manroe

• structure

  • Third section: Focuses on Marilyn Monroe.
  • Stanza lengths: First two stanzas have 9 lines each, while the next two have 10 lines each.
  • Structure reflects media control: Increasing stanza length symbolizes media's growing influence over Monroe's life.
  • Regularity despite lengthening stanzas: Mirrors media's desire for control in depicting Monroe.
  • Duffy uses structure to emulate Monroe's life under media scrutiny and control.
• A03


  Monroe was an American actress, model, and singer. She was emblematic of America's changing attitudes to sexuality, becoming a sex symbol of the 1950s and 60s. She was viciously controlled by Hollywood, eventually dying at the age of 32 to a sleeping pill overdose.
• 'the camera loved her, close up, back lit, adored' Duffy focuses on the sexualisation of Marilyn. The poem also gives an insight into the invasion and disrespect experienced by this female icon because of her gender and open promiscuousness. Duffy again uses asyndeton, 'close up, back lit, adored' to present how the cameras perceptualized a sexualised ideology of her, capturing her from every angle.
• hrough the constant use of caesura, Duffy creates a fractured flow to the poem; this again emulates the atmosphere of a broken self and a broken self image. The fractured sentences also suggest there is a moral collapse or snap in society.
• • Connotations of violence: Monroe commodified, used as capitalist object
  • Little afterthought for her care
  • "Her eyes are pressed by a banker's thumb"
  • Violent imagery covered in false "sapphires" and "platinum"
  • Covers up true mistreatment
  • Despite external beauty, Monroe internally broken
  • Objectification and abuse endured
  • Jewels metaphor for capitalism covering up truth
  • Hollywood industry exploited Monroe for her beauty
• 'somebody big was watching her, under the lights'The reference to 'light' is normally a positive association. Yet, for Monroe, even the most positive things are subverted. Duffy uses 'under the lights' to display how exposed Monroe was by the media. Especially surrounding the rumored affair with President Kenedy, the world blamed her instead of the wildly powerful man who manipulated her. It also links connotations of mystery and foreshadows the conspiracy's around her death - was it suicide or was it 'someone big watching her'
• Marilyn Monroe:

  • Rise to Fame: Iconic actress and model, symbol of beauty.
  • Death: Drug overdose, probable suicide.