In Duffy's first two collections Standing Female Nude and Selling Manhattan there are four dramatic monologues that are constructed with the 'voices' o f several different characters. A forerunner o f this use o f many different voices in one poem is Browning's
The Ring and The Book. In Browning's long multi-voiced poem the characters narrate their differing versions o f a single event. Duffy's poems do not replicate this use o f the form. Her four dramatic monologues are short in comparison, and the characters function to dramatise contemporary social issues, philosophical debate on the nature of'hum an reality', a feminist account o f the way that women write their 'life', and the interrelation o f language and consciousness.
This chapter o f readings will pay close attention to the linking devices that connect the different speakers in each poem and include a detailed comparison o f the four multi voiced dramatic monologues before the chapter summary. The four poems in order o f analysis are; 'Comprehensive' (SFN1985), 'Model Village' (SM1987), 'A Clear Note' (S F N 1985), and 'Dies Natalis' (SM I987).
'COMPREHENSIVE' (SFN 1985)
There is a specific difficulty in discussing this poem that is not relevant to the other three poems o f this chapter. 'Comprehensive' explores issues surrounding discrimination that ensue from racial and cultural difference. The difficulty that arises in discussing the poem is that o f inadvertently perpetuating both subtle and overt racial/cultural
discrimination and its associated stereotypes. My immediate response to the poem was to visualise difference of'colour' between the characters: in effect I enacted the same 'colour' discrimination as that illustrated by two o f the speakers in the poem. In order to
avoid perpetuating the inherent colour- prejudice o f the categories 'white' and 'non-white' but to preserve the differences o f culture represented by Duffy's speakers I have
categorised the children as 'indigenous' and 'immigrant'. I realise that these two terms can function as euphemisms, 'immigrant' has become a perjorative term in sections o f our society, but they do avoid reproduction o f white/non-white colour stereotyping.
In this multi-voiced dramatic monologue, seven characters o f different ethnic
background speak in sequence. Although they are in the same comprehensive school, they do not interact as if they were together but speak in single words or short sentences and relate facts as if they were responding separately to a questioner in their individual presence, who is listening to their responses.
The questioner/intradiegetic listener is not developed as a character. In my reading below I speculate on the type o f questions that must have been addressed to the children but little emerges in the poem concerning the unheard interviewer. The questions asked could be those o f a survey, seemingly formal and not complex. The children appear to respond without guile. This seems unlikely, particularly for the older children who would be influenced by factors such as the status and age o f the questioner, and indicates that 'the questioner' is a convention to validate answers from the children. As such it is a textual device that underpins the structure o f this multi-voiced dramatic monologue.
'Comprehensive' begins with a sympathetic monologue from a young African immigrant looking back with nostalgia to her homeland, and finishes with a similarly non-ironic monologue o f hope from a young Sikh, ambitious for success in his adopted country.
The first speaker is probably female because o f the hopscotch and sharing a bed with a sister. Her monologue implies that a listener o f different ethnicity is present because she explains her mother-tongue equivalent for English childhood games: 'Tutumantu is like hopscotch, Kwami-kwami is like hide-and-seek'. She describes the tension caused by her sister's loss o f their shared language after living in England: 'Sometimes we fought in bed because she didn't know/what I was saying'. She is a recent immigrant to England and is housed with her family in a refugee detention centre or lodgings. She self- identifies through her family and country o f origin:
.. .1 like Africa better than England.
My mother says You will like it when we get our own house. We talk a lot about the things we used to do
in Africa and then we are happy.
Her preoccupations suggest that she is probably very young and that she has not yet developed consciousness o f racial difference. Her interest in children's street games is a shared characteristic o f all children regardless o f ethnic background. Her depiction represents the beginning o f immigrant life in Britain.
The second speaker is male and also appears to be replying to a questioner: 'Wayne. Fourteen'. He is dismissive o f childhood activities and adopts a spurious maturity by articulating racist and sexist attitudes:
...I support
the National Front. Paki-bashing and pulling girls' knickers down.
N ational Front' is the title o f an extreme, right-wing, racist, political party. The
juxtaposition o f N ational Front' and 'Paki-bashing' serves as an ironical definition o f the party. The euphemism 'pulling girls’/knickers down' suggests sexist abuse o f his female
schoolmates but the use of'knickers' seems out o f character and suggests the consciousness o f the poet which functions as a marker for irony. Duffy has already ironised the speaker: 'pulling girls'/knickers down' suggests a different type o f
manipulation o f her speaker that is more like ventriloquism. Readers will know what the speaker means but it appears that Duffy has put her own mocking words into his mouth, rather than those that would characterise this speaker, and adds a further layer o f irony to the representation.
In several instances the questions that elicit his replies can be surmised: 'Dad's got his own mini-cab' could be the response to a question about his father's occupation; 'Arsenal' would correlate to 'Which football team do you support? His response to an implied question of'W hat do you want to do when you leave school' is 'I don't suppose I'll get a job./It's all them coming over here to work'. This suggests that his violent racism, 'Paki-bashing', is the result o f his misconception o f the relation between immigration, socio-economics, and his own employment prospects.1
Duffy's representation o f Wayne approaches ridicule as he self-identifies through racist politics, joblessness, violent video entertainment, implied by 'I spit on your grav e', and allegiance to a football team. This caricatured representation o f character constructs a stereotype familiar from the popular press, commonly described with the cliche 'mindless violence'. The lack o f development o f this character throws the phenomenon o f racist aggression into sharp relief.
The third speaker appears to be from a Muslim family 'Families face Mecca'. Her/his family has immigrated to London where the speaker regrets the change from rural to
urban life: There was much more room to play than here in London./We played in an old village. It is empty now'. This family would be categorized as 'economic immigrants' by the immigration authorities: they have come to Britain in the expectation o f an improved quality o f life, 'People wrote to us/that everything was easy here'. The speaker self- identifies through family and religion but does not reveal consciousness o f racist attitudes to colour and cultural difference. He appears to see emigration to Britain as a loss o f quality o f life. A particular feature o f this 'character' is the use o f diction that excludes me as a reader. I cannot interpret 'Masjid at 6 o'clock' but I suspect it may be a religious ritual. I shall discuss this effect o f reader exclusion in my detailed analysis after this initial reading o f the characters.
The fourth speaker, a white female appears to respond to questions concerning life at school and employment thereafter. She doesn't enjoy school-life and anticipates early marriage and an uninteresting job in the local supermarket: 'It's boring. Get engaged. Probably work in Safeways worst luck'. She is chiefly pre-occupied with a romantic vision o f both heterosexual relations and the 'popstar' industry:
I haven't lost it yet because I want
respect. Marlon Frederic's nice but he's a bit dark. I like Madness. The lead singer's dead good.
Although not as aggressively racist as 'Wayne', she indicates that skin colour is an issue; 'but he's a bit dark'. She reveals that her mother is anxious about her sexual precocity: 'My mum is bad with her nerves. She won't/let me do nothing', and resents this parental control 'It's just boring'. 'I haven't lost it yet because I want respect' appears to be a reply to a question about her sexual status, such as 'Are you still a virgin?', or a less overt paraphrase. Initially this seemed an unlikely question for an adult interviewer to ask a teenage girl, certainly I would find it awkward, but presumably in the formality o f a
survey these questions are asked, and provide the statistics that are currently available. My own disquietude would not be shared by professional interviewers familiar with the attitudes o f a more sexually- precocious generation than my own. Her narrative depicts apathy and a lack o f ambition from poverty o f life choices, and covert colour prejudice.
Ejaz, the fifth child that is questioned, self-identifies through his Moslem religion. He narrates an incident from his first day at school when a fellow pupil saved him from violating a fundamental principal o f Moslem life by snatching away the pork sausages that he was unwittingly going to eat for his school lunch:
Ejaz. They put some sausages on my plate. As I was going to put one in my mouth a Moslem boy jumped on me and pulled.
The plate dropped on the floor and broke. He asked me in Urdu if I was a Moslem. I said Yes. You shouldn't be eating this. It's pig's meat. So we became friends.
It is significant that his friend spoke in Urdu. This would not be understood by many pupils around them and would pre-empt disapproval o f their unconventional religious practice, that is, unconventional in the sense o f not being part o f the dominant culture. Clearly his friend is not such a recent immigrant and is conscious o f their position as a cultural minority: it seems that he has already learned to avoid provoking racial discrimination by hiding cultural difference.
The sixth speaker is male, more mature than the earlier speakers, and responds as if he is being questioned about racial difference: 'My sister went out with one. There was murder./I'd like to be mates, but they're different from us.' He is more tolerant than Wayne but recognises the influence o f racist attitudes amongst his peer group: 'Some o f them wear turbans in class. You can't help/taking the piss'.
Like Wayne and Michelle, he has low expectation o f an interesting job but unlike Wayne he does not directly attribute this to the presence o f other races and cultures in
contemporary society. He acknowledges cultural difference 'but they're different from us', but this recognition is not the decisive factor in his assessment o f his life
opportunities, whereas for Wayne it is. Ironically, he does not perceive that if he emigrates to Australia he will be an immigrant himself and will need to adapt to a different culture (although skin colour will not be an issue):
When I get married I might emigrate. A girl who can cook with long legs. Australia sounds all right.
His objectification o f women resonates with that o f Wayne whose sexist behaviour can be read as an indicator o f an underlying aggression towards females, although this speaker shows a more sexually mature attitude.
The final speaker articulates pride o f family and culture: 'Some o f my family are named after the Moghul emperors./Aurangzeb, Jehangir, Batur, Humayun'. S/he describes the difficulties o f integrating into a different culture: 'At first I felt as if I was dreaming, but I wasn't./Everything I saw was true.' As with the first speaker, difficulties with a new language are a serious problem:
This is a hard school. A man came in with a milk crate. The teacher told us to drink our milk. I didn't understand what she was saying, so I didn't go to get any milk.
The speaker is thirteen years old and is more likely to be male than female because o f the pre-occupation with male role models, the Moghul emperors, and the overt ambition to succeed in what is still a predominantly male culture. In contrast to Wayne and Michelle
his attitude is intelligent and positive: 'I have hope and am ambitious.' He sees
difficulties but intends to overcome them. His comment 'this is a hard school' suggests difficulties with the curriculum or antagonism from racist pupils or teachers.
I shall now consider the questions raised in this initial reading o f the seven different characters of'Comprehensive'; the positioning o f readers to respond ironically or sympathetically to the characters; the reader exclusion caused by the non-English diction; and the status and function o f the questioner.
In its entirety, the poem is neither an ironic dramatic monologue, in which all the
speakers unwittingly reveal the self-delusion and moral weakness o f their self-definition, nor is it totally in the 'sympathetic' mode derived from Webster, in which the speakers reveal the undeserved disadvantages and miseries o f their existence and consequently attract the sympathy o f readers.
There is an alternation between ironised and sympathetic characters. There is a further complexity because several o f the characters are depicted somewhat ambiguously with both irony and sympathy and may produce both ironic and sympathetic responses from readers. The balance o f these opposite modes varies from character to character.
It would be perverse to read the first speaker, the young African girl, as other than sympathetic. She still self-identifies through her family, specifically her mother and sister and is concerned wholly with family life and playtime. The dominant reading o f the final speaker, the Sikh boy, is also likely to be sympathetic, although his implied claim for his family's reflected glory through their imperial names is masculinist and
may appear elitist. However, he shows the virtue o f determination to succeed against considerable adversity. The two Muslim characters are likely to be read with more sympathy than disapproval. Some readers will identify the economic opportunism o f the third speaker and the lack o f cultural openness of'Ejaz' but neither speaker appears to be old enough to begin to separate himself from his family's values. Overall the immigrant characters are depicted in such a way as to elicit a dominant reading o f sympathy. This is not the case with the indigenous speakers.
Wayne is depicted as a stereotype: he is an ironised representation o f racist, teenage thuggery. As I have discussed elsewhere, the effect o f socio-economic forces on 'character' is a fundamental theme throughout much o f Duffy's work. This theme is evident in the depiction o f Wayne: 'I don't suppose I'll get a job. It's all them/coming over here to work'. However, in this ironised character, it is Wayne's misconceptions o f his socio-economic plight that characterise him. His stereotyped racism and aggression to females positions readers for an ironic response.
Michelle is also depicted stereotypically as a feckless 'boy-mad' teenager whose romantic obsession with glamorous male 'popstars' bodes ill for her planned early marriage. The concept o f a dominant, ironic reading is less viable here because the difference o f gender may separate out readers into disparate male and female groups. Readers conscious o f gender solidarity may have some sympathy with this character's lack o f aspiration, and recognise the restricted horizon that can apply to young females whose social situation deprives them o f realistic, aspirational role models. This gender solidarity, arising from empathic imagination or a similar experience o f adolescence, weakens the detachment required for a dispassionate, ironic reading o f the speaker. Male readers might not
empathise with Michelle because their different social positioning deprives them o f shared social experience. This suggests that male readers may read 'Michelle’ with a stronger degree o f irony than female readers.
The reading effect o f gender difference is also pertinent to the reception o f the speaker who would 'like to be mates' with the immigrant members o f his school class. An overall response to him is likely to be one o f sympathy. He is depicted as cheerful and friendly, and almost free o f the racist attitudes o f his family and peer group. It is pleasing to speculate that, with a more liberal education, he might be tolerant and eventually 'colour blind' in his choice o f friends. Sympathetic response will be qualified by awareness o f his objectifying attitude to women. This introduces an inflection o f irony in reading his character traits that may be specific to gender. A male reader may not register this 'non- sympathetic' response.
The monologues o f the indigenous speakers reveal differing shades o f racism; those o f the immigrants, reveal their sense o f otherness through cultural difference. The title indicates the type o f school that the children attend but also functions as an ironic reference to the many different attitudes towards racial/cultural difference that are expressed in the monologues, from shades o f racism such as Wayne's 'paki-bashing' mentality to one o f'I'd like to be mates, but they're different from us', and responses from