tall

• what is tall about?

  about the difficulties that women face in achieving upward social mobility , female character grows extremely tall , which isolates her from rest of society
• ' a tree dangled an apple at bite-height. She bit it.'


  • biblical links to Eve and forbidden fruit , tallness and hence more power , may be seen as tempting but can in fact be damaging to women due to how society treats them
• 'turned and fled like a boy'


  simile of rejection , men can't cope with women gaining more power
• 'she needed a turret'


  link to Rapunzel - isolation from the rest of society

  • longing to return to certainty of patriarchal entrapment
• 'Taller was colder , aloner , no wiser'


  • loses identity , just becomes 'taller' triplet enforces her isolation
  • Society elevates women into something they're not and ultimately , women's gifts are not recognised
• context


  Duffy's rise to fame = isolating

  • tried to save world by writing about the zeitgeist of the time
  • 'she cured nobody' - she has no purpose if not improving the world
• 'caught their souls in her hands as they fell from the burning towers.'


  • God-like figure , isolation and distance
  • reference to 9/11 - still willing to help despite isolation
• starts in media res

  everything before the poem in her life was unimportant