Mrs Midas - Carol Ann Duffy

“Poured a glass of wine, begun to unwind”

Sense of relaxation before disruption

“Vegetables cooked” and “The kitchen filled with the smell of itself, relaxed”

Relaxing atmosphere, the calm before the storm

“Snapping a twig”

Mr Midas is testing out his new power, the beginning of a ruined life

“Dark of the ground seems to drink the light of the sky”

Foreshadowing: introduced idea of the gift going to be a negative and be disruptive

“but that twig in his hand was gold”

Shocked tone: Mrs Midas is confused and in disbelief by what she saw

“Sat in his palm, like a lightbulb. On.”

Simile: The pear has turned gold and now looks like a lightbulb. “On” short sentence suggests the shock and belief of what Mrs Midas saw

“Is he putting fairy lights in the tree?”

Mrs Midas is extremely confused by what she is seeing, and can’t believe her eyes

“Field of Cloth of Gold”

Mr Midas is turning everything around him gold and cannot control it

“King on a burnished throne”

Mrs Midas’ husband is becoming proud of himself in an arrogant way and is feeling a sense of power, which Mrs Midas is finding very alarming

“His face was strange, wild, vain.”

Mr Midas is going crazy and his new gift is changing him, he is not the same anymore (His face…)

“What in the name of God is going on? He started to laugh”

Mrs Midas is starting to realise that Mr Midas has done something, and he is not taking it seriously, showing him being arrogant and uncontrollable (What in the name…)

“Spitting out the teeth of the rich”

Corn turned to gold when Mr Midas ate it. He is now coming to the realisation of the mistake he has made as he cannot touch anything anymore

“Toyd”

implies Midas is quite childish or could refer to how he is playing with his wife’s emotions (1 word)

“I started to scream”

Mrs Midas has officially come to realise what her husband has done, and is shocked

“I made him sit.”

Mrs Midas is slightly scared of her husband and does not want to go near him or touch him (I made…)

“On the other side of the room”

Sense of separation, with them being close before, but now becoming distanced (On the…)

“Keep his hands to himself”

She is treating him like a child, she is now the grown-up and he’s the child, shows separation and distance in their relationship (keep…)

“Look, we all have wished; granted”

Play on words, shows Mrs Midas’ humorous side with a jokey tone which shows her disbelief

“Him.”

Short sentence emphasises how annoyed Mrs Midas is, shows a sense of separation as she cannot even say his name anymore

"Aurum”

Latin word for gold - gold is hinted throughout the whole poem highlighting the theme

“Soft, untarnishable; slakes no thirst.”

Gold is useless and impractical, it feeds no one, not nourishing and is the opposite of what humans need.

“You’ll be able to give up smoking for good”

Jokey tone, cigarette will turn to gold if Mr Midas touches it

“Separate beds” and “I put a chair against the doorm, near petrified”

Shows separation, Mrs Midas is terrified of her husbands ‘gift’ (separate…)

“turning the spare room into the tomb”

The spare room is turning into gold with Mr Midas touching everything

“We were passionate then”

Shows separation, and how Mr and Mrs Midas are not close anymore, sense of sadness/loss (We were…)

“But now I feared”

Mrs Midas is scared of her husband the losing their closeness

“Kiss that would turn my lips to a work of art”

Mrs Midas and her husband cannot kiss anymore

“With a heart of gold?”

Not a good meaning - changed it to literal, their relationship is dead

“I dreamt I bore his child, its perfect ore limbs, its little tongue like a precious latch, its amber eyes holding their pupil like flies”

The longing of what she could have had. The baby is made of gold (“Amber” and “ore”) more of a nightmare rather than a dream

“I woke to the streaming sun”

Gold has become dominant in her life

“So he had to move out.”

Serious and practical tone, short sentences, also a sense of isolation as a way of coping with what has happened (So…)

“He sat in the back.”

Short sentence, sense of separateness and isolation, they are no longer close (He…)

“Woman who married the fool”

Mrs Midas thinking back to their marriage, and how the gift ruined it

“At first, I visited”

Shows how they are seperating and moving on from one another (At…)

“Parking the car a good way off, then walking”

Mrs Midas is distancing herself from him (Parking…)

“hare hung from a larch a beautiful lemon mistake”

Mr Midas surviving by hunting but all his food is turning to gold

“He was thin, delirious; hearing”

Mr Midas is slowly dying due to not being able to eat and drink and the isolation of being by himself

“Listen. That was his last straw.”

Mrs Midas realised Mr Midas is going to die and he cannot be saved

“idiocy or greed” and “lack of thought” and “Pure selfishness.”

Mrs Midas is angry at Mr Midas and blames him for his death

“I sold the contents of the house and came down here.”

Mrs Midas sold all the gold he created (humorous tone) shows the distance and separation between them

“I think of him in certain lights”

Refers to the gold and how the gold reminds Mrs Midas of Mr Midas

“a bowl of apples stopped me dead”

Yellow apples remind Mrs Midas of Mr Midas as they look gold (‘golden apples’)

“I miss most, even now”

It’s been a while since Mr and Mrs Midas separated, but she still thinks about him

“His hands, his warm hands on my skin, his touch”

Poem ends of soft tone, the ‘h’s make is soft, with a longing tone created and a sense of loss