Beautiful explores the stories of Helen of Troy, Cleopatra, Marilyn Monroe, and Princess Diana to suggest how men exploit and destroy women because of their beauty.
Beautiful describes how women have struggled with abuse, oppression, and beauty standards throughout history.
The first section's energetic and changing structure is reflective of Helen of Troy's myth.
"She was born from an egg, a daughter of the gods, divinely fair, a pearl"
"She" - women are at the centre of this poem, like all of Duffy's poems
Unobtainable beauty, asyndetic list, she is incomparable
"the starlike sorrows of immortal eyes"
Melancholic pang, she suffers a great burden
Foreshadowing her demise
"each seeing her as a local girl made good, the girl next door, a princess with a common touch"
Their own view of her, but we don't know who she really is. She is defined by perception
Asyndetic list - Duffy presents how women are categorised through history as a certain archetype
"stared up at her body as it swung there ... and noticed how the black silk of her dress clung to her form"
Her demise which was hinted at throughout the first section
She is sexualised and objectified even in death
"Her lipstick smeared on his mouth, her powder blushing on his stubble"
Make-up and femininity overpowers him
Her legacy and importance is more than his - role reversal
Atypical of the rest of the poem
"She matched him glass for glass ... and held her drink until the big man slid beneath the table, wrecked."
She defies gender roles
Her power matches his - they are equals
He is described mockingly
Levels used to increase her power and capability
"her stories blethering on his lips ... of cities lost forever in the sea, of snakes"
She has agency and control that the other women lack
The stanza stays extended - her success emulated
Her death is briefly referenced in the last line, to suggest that her reign is not outweighed by her death
"They filmed her harder, harder, till her hair was platinum, her teeth gems, her eyes sapphires"
She is passive
Association with sex and violence - exploitation
Luxurious items and wealth generated from her beauty
"painted the beauty in beige, pinks, blues. Then it was coffee, pills, booze"
Asyndetic lists
Stark contrast foreshadows her death
Her coping strategies for her treatment
"the smoking cop who watched as they zipped her into the body-bag"
Contrast of the romanticised life that Marilyn Monroe appeared to have and the reality of her life and death
"the dark roots of her pubic hair"
She is haunted by the 'male gaze'
Through her life, she was filmed constantly, and even in death, she has no privacy
Everything is on show, foreshadowing what happened to her body after death - destruction due to men
The fourth section is written in quatrains, to convey the pressure to conform as a perfect princess, and her entrapment.
"Dead, she's elegant bone in mud, ankles crossed, knees clamped"
Her death is her legacy - everything else is overshadowed
Her poise and posture is immortalised in her death
"Act like a fucking princess - how they loved her ... Give us a smile, cunt"
She was under pressure of obligation and duty to the royal family
The men from the press did not love her - they loved exploiting her
Aggressive, misogynistic language - her real treatment
"History's stinking breath in her face"
Smothering, suffocating
All of the royal family before her
The pressure almost being screamed at her in her face