1. TASK ONE: Paired reading of the poem (after ind. reading)
The Map Woman
TASK ONE: Paired reading of the poem (after ind. reading)
Person A reads a stanza aloud, Person B AO1 focused discussion (interpretation/meanings – first impression/ideas)
Then swap for the next stanza and so on until you’ve completed your reading of the poem.

2. A ‘JOURNEY’ THROUGH THE STANZAS

3. New AO2 – Types of listing
Asyndetic
Syndetic
No connectives
“I gave her shelter, food, clothes, shelter”
Includes connectives
“We were warm and sheltered and protected”

4. Stanza 1 Third person Past Tense
Disconnect with reader/outsider’s perspective
Metaphor – “skin was a map of the town”
Enjambment – map is never ending….but…end stopped line juxtaposes this – why?
Asyndetic listing – “with a dress, with a shawl, with a hat….”
Shame if map exposed.
Feminine side “dress” “shawl”
Shameful side/more concealing “trousers/jeans/ankle length cloak” – to cover up the past
Metaphor - “second skin” as if permanence of the “birth mark” is the past haunting her.
“Broad if she binged, thin when she slimmed” – past is always with her (+ref to female societal pressure/negative connotation of “binged”)

5. The Journey continues….
Stanza 2
Stanza 3
Focus is on ‘place’ – where “things in the town land on her body.
Pun – “heart of the town”
Unfinished blazon
Serpentine imagery
Topographical imagery
Body parts mimic the town
Syndetic listing “alleys and street and walks”
Verbs “snaking”
Masculine representation of education/politics of the past – patriarchy (marked graves- eternal in history)
Switch to second person – connects reader to woman
Images of relationships/possible expectations of womanhood embedded “into the earth” like “old print on a page”
Syndetic listing – unstoppable process of a woman’s life - mapped out “who you would marry and how and where and when/you would die”
Images of entrapment – simile “trapped in the window’s bottle- thick glass like a fly”

6. The Journey continues….
Stanza 4
Stanza 5
Ambiguous rhetorical question - following someone.
An image that is nor permanent “fingernail pressed on he flesh” – perhaps moments of getting lost in life? (ironic as she has a “map”)
The map as art “ink from a nib” – the map belongs to the woman and should not be covered up.
Duffy makes the body art to make the woman more accepting of her body – less self conscious of her appearance.
Verb “knew” shows knowledge of the map emphasised by proper nouns (personal and precise) – realism of narrative.
Enjambment from stanza 4 (flow of the narrative – a journey through time)
Popular culture refs (music/film)
Link to history and the past – looking back on past experiences
Pivotal sibilance “She sponged, soaped, scrubbed” – bitterness towards her own body. Active verbs show desperation – wanting to remove the past.
River “snaking north/heading south” – metaphor for change.

7. The Journey continues….
Stanza 6
Stanza 7
The woman vanished in a metaphorical “belch” of steam – onomatopoeic. Perhaps wanting make map vanish to “taste future” tone – she is desperate to lose her past.
The hyphen creates similar effect of enjambment – flow.
She is trying to conceal the map “duck and dive” – new routes – why?
Declarative sentence “She didn’t live there now” – monosyllabic creates tone of resent. Why?
Pivotal asyndetic list – “under her stockings, under her gloves, under the soft silk scarf…” insecurity/lost. Why does she want to forget about her past?

8. The Journey continues….
Stanza 8
Stanza 9
Images of childhood
Images of danger/risk/recklessness
Images of culture – French/British/Italian – goodbye..
Focus shifts to body image.
“stared in the mirror as she got dressed”
Dehumanising the woman reinforces the insecure body image but this is juxtaposed by an image of certainty “but her body was certain/an inch to a mile”.
Her body is certain but not her mind….conflict.

9. The Journey continues….
Stanza 10
Stanza 11
Focus shifts to analysis of her body in the mirror “there it all was”.
She seems afraid to look at her past…
“She piled on linen, satin/silk/she got in a limousine” expense hides the map…
Declarative sentence “The map perspired/under her clothes”
“The map seethed”
The progression to “seethed” is intense as if the map is trying to escape from her but no escape….”the map translated everything back to herself”
“lover’s hands/caressed the map..” – metaphor for present embracing her past? Releasing her past is important to her present happiness – what is Duffy suggesting about identity ?
Pace slows (conjunction “so”)
Losing her way
“soaked in the bath” – still focused on removing but less aggressive/perhaps moving to acceptance?

10. All routes end here….. Stanza 12 Stanza 13 Doubt – memory loss implied
Serpentine imagery “her skin sloughed/like a snake’s, the skin of her legs like stockings, silvery/sheer..”
She feels her skin is clothing that she can remove.
Pivotal declarative “Her sleep/peeled her” – binary oppositions – something happening unconsciously. Nearing end of long journey “z”
Woman’s parents are dead “skulls”
“Her new skin showed barely a mark” – yet to have experiences that mark.
Woman wakes “spread out the map on the floor” – she can see the entire map.
Rhetorical question “what was she looking for?”
Semantic field of death represents her old self dying-a “ghost” a “suicide letter” – deadliness that has surrounded her old life.
“skin itched/like a rash, like a slow burn, felt stretched, as though it belonged to someone else”. She now feels like she is not herself because she has left her past behind. What is Duffy’s point here?
Poem’s resolution represents the idea that the past will never leave you – “Deep in the bone/old street tunnelled and burrowed, hunting for home”
Animalistic imagery/victim of hunting.
She has lost her skin, but will never lose her memories.

11. Potential Question using Map Woman
Modern Texts frequently explore the importance of the past on both society and the individual. Compare how the significance of the past is explored in two texts you have studied.

12. Key AO2 features of this poem: language - revise
Extended metaphor of the map on her skin. Sometimes it is described as “gleam[ing]”, at others “seeth[ing]” – why? What overall concept is Duffy trying to introduce in this poem – about the past? Female identity?
Topographical imagery (e.g. stanza 2) presents a literal mapping of the landscape onto the contours of her female form. What is Duffy trying to illustrate here?
Serpentine imagery, combined with sibilance (L16, various references in stanza 12), representing women’s desire to reinvent themselves – the necessity for the Map Woman to shed her old identity in order to move forward. How does she feel following this shedding of skin? What could this suggest? How does this link to the ending?
References to female clothing and perfume as concealment/disguise (Stanzas 1, 7, 10) This appears to be vital to the Map Woman, but why? Is this due to shame? Conditioning of society?
Listing is used across the poem, e.g. in stanza 1 of the feminine garments to cover her body; later in the poem a list of places mapped onto her body…
Metaphors suggesting permanence: “birthmark, tattoo” (stanza 1), “the map/ gleamed on her skin, blue-black ink from a nib” (stanza 4). How does this help to reinforce the restrictive nature of the Map Woman’s past?
Verbs e.g. triplet in stanza 5 “sponged, soaped, scrubbed”, auditory verbs in stanza 7/8 “thumping”, “crying”, “groaned”. How are these collections of verbs used in powerful ways?
Listing – syndetic and asyndetic

13. Key AO2 features: structure and form
Free verse and use of enjambment (across lines and also stanzas) could create the illusion of freedom? What other effects can these features create?
Lack of end rhyme but some internal rhyme – again could suggest illusion of freedom but also sense of claustrophobia/inescapability with internal rhyme. Find examples of internal rhyme and test this idea – how does it contribute to your interpretation of the lines?
Tightly constricted shape to stanzas – uniform line length, 10 line stanzas, reflecting the restrictions of her female identity and her inability to escape her past experiences.

14. In your opinion, what is the poem trying to express about female identity? Discuss in 2s and 3s, ready to write a short critical summary. You might use some of the key words/phrases to help you. You will be agreeing and refining this, ready to type up.
a quest for true identity a despair in the predetermination of female identity
the incompatibility of the female mind and body
the mapping of a woman’s experience a desire to escape
discomfort in her own skin/with her femininity a need to evolve
the inability to escape your past the influence of the past upon the present
the topographical descriptions reflecting the feminine contours of the map woman’s body reflect…
her old identity appears to reassert itself by the end of the poem, so…
her old identity is embedded “deep in the bone” reflecting – acceptance? Coexistence? Resolution? Compromise?

15. Connections with ‘Handmaids’
You might like to record this in a 3 column table. Leave some space to add ideas when you confer with other tables.
Connections with ‘Handmaids’
Exploring the following areas, what connections can you find with the way female identity and its connection to the female body are expressed in this poem and the novel? Consider:
The importance of gender
The importance of clothing
Societal influence upon a woman’s identity
Importance of the past to female identity – both to the Map Woman and Offred
What is the impact of ‘Handmaids’ being a first person narrative (degree of realism) and ‘The Map Woman’ being third person and highly figurative (metaphorical)?
What is each of these writers trying to communicate about female identity/the female body?

16. Societal influence on a woman’s identity
Example paragraph. How have the different AOs been met here?
Societal influence on a woman’s identity
AO1 strong topic sentence, developed comparison
AO2 writer’s methods, terminology, close analysis
AO3 relevance or significance of context
(AO4 typicality linked to context or aspects of form)
AO5 different interpretations/counter
In both Duffy’s ‘The Map Woman’ and Atwood’s ‘Handmaid’s Tale’ the writers emphasise the influence of aspects of society on their female protagonist’s identity. For Atwood, this is portrayed within an imagined future dystopian society, which disturbingly reflects recent elements of modern history. Atwood herself said of the novel, “The thing to remember is that there is nothing new about the society depicted in The Handmaid’s Tale except the time and place. All the things I have written about have... been done before, more than once.” In Duffy’s poem, what is presented as most significant to her identity is the impact of her past, specifically shown through the metaphorical mapping of the landscape of her childhood on her skin. The Map Woman’s past and the society in which she grew up are such an integral part of her identity that it is portrayed as permanent “birthmark, tattoo” and almost stifling through the simile “your tiny face trapped in the window’s bottle-thick glass like a fly”. Although ‘The Map Woman’ is set in the modern day, the way in which the Map Woman carries her past experiences with her (on her skin) is reminiscent of how throughout history, a woman’s reputation (society’s view of her identity) is influenced by her past behaviours and associations and that she would continue to be judged by this in her future.
In the Gileadean society of ‘Handmaids’, Offred’s social identity is formed through the role society assigns her – a Handmaid – and the way in which her physical or external identity is determined by this – for example, through the habit and headdress she wears and the symbolic colour red “the colour of blood, which defines us”. For the Handmaids, in Gilead, the blood red of their uniform serves as a constant reminder of their fertility and that the arrival of menstrual blood for them is shameful, since their purpose is to conceive a child for their Commander, but the way in which the Handmaids are both revered but simultaneously stigmatised reminds us of traditional associations in literature between women and the colour red, reflecting a scandalous ‘scarlet woman’ and perhaps alluding to the sexual sacrifices the Handmaids must make.
Both Duffy and Atwood are trying to critique the impact that society has upon its women’s outer identities and the way in which women can and have been judged harshly throughout history based on their perceived behaviours and connections. However, I think that both writers also endeavour to separate the outer identity from the inner identity of their protagonists…
Highlight the AOs. Where would this go next? How would you finish this point?

17. Self review: Highlight where you have covered the different AOs in different colours. Which should be your focus area for improvement?
Writing it up…
AO1 strong topic sentence, developed comparison
AO2 writer’s methods, terminology, close analysis
AO3 relevance or significance of context
(AO4 typicality linked to context or aspects of form)
How do writers present the past as an important part of female identity?
Use the relevant section of your table to help you draw together elements of Handmaids and The Map Woman.
Don’t forget to weave in the different AOs 
Start with a strong topic sentence comparing the texts and signposting argument.
You might like to start:
In both Duffy’s ‘The Map Woman’ and Atwood’s ‘Handmaid’s Tale’, the writers emphasise the significance of their protagonist’s past to the formation of their identity. Whilst in ‘The Map Woman’ this…., in ‘Handmaids’ instead…
CHALLENGE – What can you bring in for AO5 (counter argument/different viewpoints)?