Mrs Sisyphus

Myth:
Sisyphus was known as a crafy king, who used trickery to trap the embodiment of death, Thanatos. As punishment for his trickery, he was thrown into Tartarus, forced to roll a boulder up a hill, that would roll back down as soon as he got close to the top, for all eternity.
He is one of the most famous criminals in the Underworld.

Structure:
Mrs Sisyphus is split into three stanzas, all of unequal length and using different rhyme schemes. The third stanza is displayed on a second page, to show a change in tone.

Closer Reading:
- In the first stanza all lines end in words that end with an -rk sound, creating a constant flowing rhyme, e.g. "jerk", "irk", and "berk". The words Mrs Sisyphus uses to describe her husband are all negative. She is just as irritated as he is about the repetitive task.
- "I call it a stone" - she belittles his task, trying to show that he isn't that strong or capable.
- "I could do something vicious to him with a dirk" - a dirk is a type of dagger. Mrs Sisyphus wishes to inflict pain onto her husband, as her type of punishment.
- Mrs Sisyphus only thinks of how his punishment affects her. He can no longer spend anytime with her. "Think of the perks, he sayss/ What use is a perk, I shriek" - she is not willing to see a positive side to his task.
- They think it's a quirk...A load of old bollocks is nearer the mark" Using taboo language emphasises her stress and anger. Mr Sisyphus, again, doesn't think much for the punishment or her husband. She is self centred.
- "that feckin' stone's no sooner up/ that it's rolling back/ all the way down." - the way the sentence is broken up makes the lines grow smaller and smaller as you read down, like the boulder is rolling down the hill. This is also a link back to the original myth and the property of the boulder, cursed by Zeus.
- "Musn't shirk - /keen as a hawk,/ lean as a shark/ Musn't shirk!" - continued repetition of the -rk sound and also "musn't shirk". Sisyphus isn't really pleased with his wife's moaning behavior. She is taunting him.
- "But I lie alone in the dark,/ feeling like Noah's wife did" - Mrs Sisyphus feels unattached to her husband and disconnected from the world as a result of his lack of affection. She is "alone" because of her husband's lack of consideration for her. This final stanza is meant to envoke symphathy from the reader, about the unfortunateness of her position.
- "My voice reduced to a squark" - she had become unimportant.
-  "he is giving one hundred per cent and more to his work." - Sisyphus only cares about completing his impossible task. He is driven mad by the constant failure, and wishes to prove everyone wrong; he can roll the boulder to the top of the hill. As a result of this selfishness, Mrs Sisyphus is alone.

Themes:
Like Medusa, we are given a character that we are meant to hate because of her unsupportiveness towards her husban
d. However as the poem progress,we symphathise with the lack of affection she feels. Carol Ann Duffy is showing a world where men, and their needs, are more important than women.