English Literature AS Level OCR

1. CAROL ANN DUFFY
POEMS
By Charles, Hannah, Katie, Maria and Mohsin

2. COURSEWORK TITLE
• Explore ‘Little Red Cap’ by Carol Ann
Duffy. How far is it representative of
Duffy’s portrayal of problematic
relationships in ‘The World’s Wife’?

3. LITTLE RED CAP
• Autobiographical poem
• Based on little Red riding hood
• It is about her coming to the end of her childhood

4. At childhood’s end, the houses petered out
Into playing fields, the factory, allotments
Kept, like mistresses, by kneeling married men
The silent railway line, the hermit’s caravan
Till you came at last to the edge of the woods.
It was there that I first clapped eyes on the wolf
Sounds like
a place
Leaving her
childhood
behind
Secretive
Going nowhere
Living alone
The full stop signifies
the end of
childhood
Sudden

5. He stood in a clearing, reading his verse out loud
In his wolfy drawl, a paperback in his hairy paw
Red wine staining his bearded jaw. What big ears
He had! What big eyes he had! What teeth!
In the interval, I made quite sure he spotted me
Sweet sixteen, never been, babe, waif, and bought me a drink
Rebel that
women
want
She was
drawn to
him
Popular saying sweet sixteen
never been kissed
Woman
Metaphor
of the man

6. My first. You might ask why. Here’s why. Poetry.
The wolf, I knew, would lead me deep into the woods,
Away from home, to a dark tangled thorny place
Lit by the eyes of owls. I crawled in his wake,
My stockings ripped to shreds, scraps of red from my blazer
Snagged on twig and branch, murder clues. I lost both shoes
Her first taste at
being a woman
Lead her
astray
Dark and
dangerous
dominated
Loss of what she
had
Lost the ability
to walk away
Killed her
childhood

7. But got there, wolf’s lair, better beware. Lesson one that night
Breath of the wolf in my ear, was the love poem
I clung till dawn to his thrashing fur, for
What little girl doesn’t dearly love a wolf?1
Then I slid from between his heavy matted paws
And went in search of a living bird – white dove –
Rhyme – pay
attention
He sweet talked her
sex
Old and nasty
purity
Search for new love

8. Which flew, straight, from my hands to his hope mouth.
One bite, dead. How nice, breakfast in bed, he said,
Licking his chops. As soon as he slept, I crept to the back
Of the lair, where a whole wall was crimson, gold, aglow with books.
Words, words were truly alive on the tongue, in the head,
Warm, beating, frantic, winged; music and blood.
Her virginity
was taken
Scared of him
Sexual
connotations
She was there
for books
Speeds up what you read

9. But then I was young – and it took ten years
In the woods to tell that a mushroom
Stoppers the mouth of a buried corpse, that birds
Are the uttered thought of trees, that a greying wolf
Howls the same old song at the moon, year in, year out
Season after season, same rhyme, same reason. I took an axe
reflecting
The length of the
relationship
Everything
good is
dead
She is bored
Repetition for
emphasis
Dramatic
compared to
the rest

10. To a willow to see how it wept. I took an axe to a salmon
To see how it leapt. I took an axe to the wolf
As he slept, one chop, scrotum to throat, and saw
The glistening, virgin white of my grandmother’s bones
I filled his old belly with stones. I stitched him up
Out of the forest I come with my flowers, singing, all alone
Didn’t give
him a
chance to
argue
Voice to
manhood
Decisive
Cold heart Other girls
Happy, getting back life -
entering adulthood

11. •The title of the poem grabs your attention and reminds you of Little Red Riding Hood, a children’s story.
There is also reference throughout “What big eyes he had! What teeth!”
•In the first stanza of the poem, Duffy starts off with the metaphor “At childhood’s end”. This portrays that
childhood is so powerful it has been described as a physical place.
•“Away from home, to a dark tangled thorny place”. The way she has used these words makes the
image very clear for the reader to imagine exactly what the Wolf’s lair must be like away from the
protection and safety of her home.
•Duffy uses more colour later in the poem “where a wall was crimson, gold, aglow with books”, this
imagery arguably does not mean that she has a passion for the colour or the wall in a physical sense,
but reinforces the point that she has a passion for learning.

12. Character interpretation of the wolf
•Initially portrayed as ‘bad’ – the usual role
•“It was there that I first clapped eyes on the wolf – emphasis
on ‘I’
•the wolf appears to be educated and not ‘sly’ - “you might
ask why. Here’s why. Poetry.”
•personification is used to create a stronger connection
between the reader and the character of the wolf in the
poem.
• poetry, was separated from the rest of this line in a sentence
on it’s own which is another way Duffy has used her words to
draw attention to the more important things

13. Wolf continued
•Duffy uses colour to show purity. “And went in search of a living bird – white
dove”. The white colour is a very pure, natural colour and the dove is a very
gentle bird. So it almost appears a shock when in the next line the wolf eats
the dove “which flew, straight, from my hands to his open mouth.”
•Before this, the wolf appeared the educated one, but now the role is
reversed as little red cap appears very intellectual and appreciates beauty
(in this instance, the dove,) where as the wolf does not. The sentence
continues “one bite, dead”. This is a very short sentence and emphasises the
quick snap of his jaw and demonstrates the destruction that the wolf could
cause.
•Towards the end of the poem, little red cap appears to be looking back
and reflecting. The enjambment adds to the reflection.

14. •Duffy uses repetition and rhyming in the last stanza: “I took an axe to a willow
to see how it wept. I took an axe to a salmon to see how it leapt. I took an axe
to the wolf as he slept…” to make it stand out
•there is a change of tense from past to present. “I filled his old belly with stones.
I stitched him up drawing the attention to the last few lines, because everything
that has been said previously is contradicted, the wolf isn’t as ‘good’ as he was
portrayed. As well as this, we see that little red cap is no innocent because she
has had to use violence.
The last stanza is also a reflection of her innocence “out of the forest I come with
my flowers, singing all alone”, this demonstrates an almost innocent approach
which mirrors what was said in the beginning of the poem.

15. Anne Hathaway
‘Item I gyve unto my wief my second best bed…’ (from Shakespeare’s will)
The bed we loved in was a spinning world
of forests, castles, torchlight, cliff-tops, seas
where he would dive for pearls. My lover’s words
were shooting stars which fell to earth as kisses
on these lips; my body now a softer rhyme
to his, now echo, assonance; his touch
a verb dancing in the centre of a noun.
Some nights I dreamed he’d written me, the bed
a page beneath his writer’s hands. Romance
and drama played by touch, by scent, by taste.
In the other bed, the best, our guests dozed on,
dribbling their prose. My living laughing love
– I hold him in the casket of my widow’s head
as he held me upon that next best bed.
Sexual
Images of beauty
Pearls are rare like
Wishing stars – her love
wishes came true
Referring to things he loved
Content with being
second best but
sometimes wanted
more
She felt she came 2nd
to prose Alliteration, rule of
3, present tense
Only rhyme in the sonnet