Pygmalion's Bride

Myth:
Pygmalion was a sculpture, that feel in love with a statue he carved. He made offerings to Venus, the Roman goddess of love, that he may have a live girl with similar likeliness to his statue. When he returned home, he kissed the statue and realised that it was soft. The ivory statue, was no longer ivory, but a real woman, who he then married and had children by.

Structure:
Pygmalion's Bride has seven stanzas of unequal length. The stanzas start of short, grow longer, then reduce in size at the end of the poem.

Closer Reading:
- "Cold, I was, like snow, like ivory." - A simile relating to the original myth, that the 'bride' is made out of ivory. "Like snow" relates to the colour white, suggesting innocence and naivety.
- "I thought He will not touch me,/ but he did" - The man only cares about what he wants and doesn't give any thought to how the woman would feel.
- "He kissed my stone-cool lips" - metaphor for her statue nature.
- "I stay still/ as though I'd died." - the man is in control.
- "He stayed." - again, the man doesn't seem to care that the woman feels uncomfortable. The short sentence suggests power because of it's abruptness.
- "He thumbed my marble eyes" - a metaphor, but also literal.
- "He spoke - /blunt endearments, what he'd do and how." - man dominance. The woman doesn't have a voice that can be heard.
- "My eyes were sculpture,/ stone-deaf, shells,/ I heard the sea." - a play on word to 'tone-deaf'. The woman doesn't understand the man. "I heard the sea" could also be humourous because when a shell is held to an ear, one is supposed to hear the sea. All the bride is hearing is white noise.
- "I drowned him out./ I heard him shout." - the man gets violent when he doesn't get his way. 'Drowned' him in the sea she previously mentioned.
- "He brought me presents, polished pebbles,/ little bells." - the man thinks that by trying to win the woman over with materialistic things, she will fall for him. Critical of how men act around women nowadays. Alliteration of 'p'.
- "I didn't blink,/ was dumb" - Carol Ann Duffy making the point that that's how men prefer their women to do. The statue was also literally dumb because she couldn't speak.
- "He brought me peals and necklaces and rings." - Syndetic listing suggested the elaborateness of his advances. "He called them girly things." -stereotypical of what women like - the man also doesn't understand the woman.
- "He ran his clammy hands along my limbs. / I didn't shrink,/ played statue, shtum." 'Shtum' is an idiom for silent. The woman feels like she can't escape.
-  "he squeezed, he pressed. / I would not bruise." - the woman is made of marble and will show "no scratch, no scrape, no scar." The alliteration reinforces this idea.
- "He looked for marks,/ for purple hearts,/ for inky stars, for smudgy clues" - he is trying to find evidence that this woman is human, or that perhaps she loves someone else and has already been 'claimed'.
- "My heart was ice, was glass." - a metaphor. She feels no warmth towards this man. Ice and glass are also breakable, which could suggest that with the right amount of effort, the man could break this woman.
- "His voice was gravel, hoarse." - a contrast to her own delicate features. They are mismatched.
- "So I changed tack/ grew warm, like candle wax,/ kissed back," - half rhymes and internal rhymes. She needs to change herself to become what the man wants. "candle wax" is malliable and can be easily shaped.
- "was soft, was pliable/ began to moan,/ got hot, got wild,/ arched, coiled, writhed." - sexual connotations. She is finally giving the man what he wanted, but took no pleasure in it herself.
- "begged for his child...all an act" - she's realised that if she becomes too attached to the man he will want less of her.
- "And haven't seen him since." - the man has left her because of her clingyness.
- "Simple as that." A short and minor sentence to end with. Impactual. The woman accomplished her goal in the end;  to be rid of the man.

Themes:
Carol Ann Duffy is showing a woman that feels she needs to change to fit the ideals of a man. She is highlighting that men must feel wanted but will get scared when women become committed; another critical opinion. Pygmalion's Bride is first and foremost a lover in the eyes of the man, but not appreciated for anything but her looks, much like Medusa at the start of her relationship.