“The poems of Carol Ann Duffy and Emily Bronte’s Prose novel Wuthering Heights, though written in different centuries, can be linked through their portrayal of strong-minded, independent and empowered female protagonists / narrators.” Consider the validity of this argument, through close reference to the texts. Your answer should make reference to at least THREE of Duffy’s poems.

Both Duffy and Bronte chose throughout there work to tackle difficult subjects predominantly through the portrayal of females in there writing. Duffy was born 1955 a Scottish poet and the first female Poet Laureate. Her poetry the subject of much controversy, she follows in the poetic tradition of, for example, Robert Browning, in writing monologues from the point of view of a disturbed character. The majority of her poems feminist in themes and approach. Her collection The Worlds Wife took characters from history, literature and mithiloligy and gave them a female point of view, as a sister, a wife, or feminised version of the character. Similarly Emily Bronte was an extremely talented writer, pretending to be a male in order to get her Gothic romance Wuthering Hight's published. A complex novel of love vengeance, is still controversial today.While it has been called one of the most carefully constructed novels in the English language, Charlotte refers to Emily as “an unconscious artist who did not know what she had done;” in other words, a visionary genius. Hence there are uncanny links between these two strong-minded writers, and their portrayal of empowered female characters.

The male fixentation on female beauty is a key theme running through both writers text. Historically woman were thought of to be “seen but not heard,” hence making there appearance one of there only attributes that is ever noticed. We see this in Brontes Wuthering Hight's where only after Catherine dies is she truly praised, and even here is just for her beauty. Heathcliff describes Catharine as being “no angle in heaven could be more beautiful than she appeared.” The fact that woman are more idealised in death than in life again goes on to strengthen the point of how insignificant a womans voice was in the 18th century. Heathcliff goes on to exaggerate the description of her “lips,” “smile” and “smooth brow”s. It seems that Catherine had been searching for identity throughout the length of this novel. However is constantly being pot rayed as masochistic and vulnerable as she is the idealisation of the perfect women of the men around her. Mirroring this idea of beauty in death Duffy's poem “Beautiful.” In the eighteenth stanza of this poem we observe as a reader, although the name is not mentioned specifically, that its describing Princess Diana. “Dead, she's elegant bone” emphasising shock through her “beautifully pale skin” and “eyes widening,” drawing connotations of a shocked animal as people would “stare and stare,” as the cameras gibbered away.” The word “gibbered” has animalistic qualities, possibly suggesting how encaged she felt as “flashbulbs” surrounding her. Furthermore Duffy's interpretation of the intentions of “men” are shown externally as “they loved her, the men from the press,” however to the side in italics they state “give us a smile, cunt.” Duffey's use of this strong language addresses the contrivetial topic of weather men are truly displaying there emotions eternally, or putting on a mask in order to gain what they maliciously want. Here we see the personalities of the two strong headed females express how they feel towards the males fixation on a females appearance.

In the work of these female writers, we see some classic ideas of male dominance challenged. For example in Duffys poem “Queen Kong,” the gender roles are reversed, as she describes her lover as “my little man,” a possessive pronoun shows how his first introduction is as her belonging “my” and inferior “little” as well as as exaggerating his features giving him a caricature portrayal. Further we see the mans reluctance as the female protagonist is “shouting” at him however takes him anyway emphasising her controlling and overbearing personality. His nameless status emphasises the mans inferiority. Finally in the last stanza she describes him through alliteration of the plosive “p” sound; “perfectly preserved.” Giving the sense of contentment and awe. A controversial and disturbing image creates bathos since he is dead. Similarly when we look at Catharine's character and how unusual it is in the victorian era to have such a strong headed, and opinionated female protagonist, hence why when it was published it raised such controversy. For too long she is seen to “play” the two men, Linton and Heathcliff, wanting them both in her life. Wanting Linton for “status” and “wealth,” where as wanting Heathcliff for “love,” as she describes it as the “source of visible delight.” When Catharine talks about herself , she is oddly disconnected, she describes herself on the same terms and syntax that she would describe another person. We see this as peculiar since Catherine appears to be in control of the opposite gender. These strongly female feminist protagonist foreshadow how the separations in sex is going to change.

We see how Duffys and Brontes background make them strong headed females, which is mirrored in the text how other characters may also be affected and shaped by there childhood background. We see this in Duffys poem “Psychopath,” the protagonist thinks of himself as a 1960s Hollywood icon, references are made to “Jimmy Dean,” Marlon “Brendo,” “Elvis” Presley and Bogart. This suggests he is worryingly narcissistic and delusional. The protagonist uses colloquial language, when saying “I nicked a quid”, an informal way of saying “I stole a pound,” Duffy does this to represent the characters “voice” and can reveal social background, and status. Furthermore to allow the reader to get an understand from where this psychopathic behaviour stems from we go back to the protagonists roots by her recreation of two incidents from his past in flashbacks. It is suggested his sadistic behaviour stems from an unsettled childhood as we see the incident with the “Rent Man,” the capitalisation points out how important this incident was hen he saw his mother paying the “rent” through sexual favours. The use of the word choice “Mama” and reference to “school cap,” suggests that at the time he was young and innocent. The experience affected him deeply and Duffy uses imagery to describe it: “the sky slammed down on my school cap,” the word choce “slammed” showing how powerfully it hit hit him and hence further foreshadowing events to come in his later life. In both of these key incidents the poet uses ellipsis to show how the psychopaths past has effected him and how it leads him to become the meaning character he is in the present for after seeing the rent man he says “I ran,ran…” the ellipsis making the link between past and present. Similarly in Brontes Wuthering Hight's Heathcliff's ambiguous background in Liverpool is seen to affect him as he matures in a totally different background. He is treads by handily from the begging as an outcast, “Take my colt, gypsy then! said young Earnshaw. And I pray that he may break your neck: take him, and he damned you beggarly interloper! and wheedle my farther out of all he has: only afterwards show him you are , imp of satan.” Even as a child, Hindley sees Heathcliff as a threat to his inheritance, and uses accusatives and exclamatory sentences in order to portray is dislike towards his adopted brother. But it is actuality the way that he treats Heathcliff that create the orphans drive to gain the inheritance. If Hindley had accepted him, things might have gone differently. In both of these situations we see how the outcomes of these characters could have been altered if there upbringings had been different and had not shaped there less desirable characteristics.

We see how characters grow and develop as they age. In Duffy's “Little Red cap,” we can see a notable difference as the poem progresses. The poem is a “journey” of life, its risks and successes, the first line “at childhoods end…” reveals the time and setting with syntax and an imedias res opening. This is later contrasted with the final line; “out of the forest I come with my flowers, singing alone,” Duffy uses a dramatic ending to the story to portray hoe she is no longer in a dark or dangerous place, she is carrying symbols of victory independent of a man. Satire is used here to mock how easy it was for a little girl to “kill” a male wolf all by her self, which simultaneously shows the protagonists gender role reversal. We see an opposite conclusion to Catherine's life in Wuthering Hight's, since she the female is the one to “die”. It is questionable that the stress brought to her by other male characters and the choices she had to make contributed to her sudden death. And even after her death she is mocked by Heathcliff with a “sneer,” he asks if she “died a saint?” The use of mockery shows in this part of the novel she again is portrayed a feeble and at the mercy of a male, which hence conforms to the general “damsel in distress” idea. Here the two authors portray two female protagonists in different light, one a strong headed and the other vulnerable.

To conclude, I agree that both Brontes and Duffy's work have remarkable similarities in there portrayal of strong minded, independent and empowered females. They go about challenging socially acceptable norms of female behaviour. Both authors are independent women who stereotypically due to there sex would not be able to produce literature of such a high level. They then go on to reflect there views for pro gender equality by creating characters such as Nelly, who although only a ladies maid, speaks out her opinions about Catharine's actions to her, something that would have been socially unacceptable in the Victorian era, hence again challenging both class and gender expectations. Similarly Duffy presents characters such as the female “gorilla,” and “Little Red Riding-hood” which have a female empowerment twist in a classic story, provoking controversial ideas. So overall both authors continuously raise there own opinions about the treatment of the two genders in there own work.