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Warming Her Pearls by Carol Ann Duffy

Warming Her Pearls is a sensual poem in which a servant girl reveals her love for her
mistress, as she describes wearing her pearls throughout the day in order that they be ‘warm’
for her mistress to wear that evening. Apparently this was a common practice in Edwardian
and Victorian England, because the lustre of pearls was seemingly improved by body heat. It
was after hearing this piece of trivia from a friend that Duffy felt inspired to write this poem.
The poem itself can be found here.

Structure and Form

This poem is a dramatic monologue in which we are privy to the private thoughts of the
servant girl, as she ruminates longingly about the lady for whom she works.

It is set out in six stanzas of four lines each. Most lines contain ten syllables although some
are eleven or twelve. This could suggest an overflowing of emotions from the servant as she
dreams of her mistress.

There is no rhyme scheme.

The language is rich in comparisons and contrast, tactile imagery and alliteration and
assonance. The frequent use of caesura and enjambment mean that the rhythm is often
disrupted, again indicating feelings of disquiet in the servant.

It is worth noting the connotations of the word mistress, meaning both one’s superior or one’s
illicit sexual partner.

Warming Her Pearls Analysis

First Stanza

The intimacy of the relationship between servant girl and mistress is evident in first line,
‘Next to my own skin, her pearls.’ It is impossible to read these words quickly; we feel how
the girl savours the feeling of the necklace against her ‘own skin’. The use of the possessive
pronouns placed together seems to load this act with meaning.

We have an immediate sense of the physical closeness between these women, although they
are divided by class, their daily lives are entwined in the intimate gestures they share. Again
there is sensuousness in the language:

My mistress/bids me wear them, warm them, until evening/

When I brush her hair.

The long alliterative ‘w’ sounds are soft and combined with the repetition of ‘them’ hints that
the girl is aware of the pearls, reminding her of her mistress as she feels their weight against
her skin. They make her feel close to her mistress as she wears them, as she has been
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instructed. Then she will transfer them over as she helps the lady of the house with her
‘toilette’ and place them around her ‘cool white throat’. (The fact the throat is white is
another indication of class distinction, since the upper classes did not need to work outdoors
and thus remained pale, while others who toiled outdoors acquired a sun tan.)

It seems almost unnecessary to include the final sentence of this stanza: All day I think
of/her, because we already have the impression that the mistress is the servant’s object of
desire, thus constantly monopolises her thoughts.

Second Stanza

Nest we read of the daily occupations of the lady. She has weighty decisions to take while she
rests in the Yellow Room, ‘which gown tonight?’ The capitalisation of the rooms suggests
that there are many in the house, perhaps there is also a ‘Blue Room’ and a ‘Red Room’.
Certainly there is wealth and prestige because she is ‘contemplating silk or taffeta’ which are
luxurious fabrics. The image of the mistress as ‘she fans herself” while her servant “work (s)
willingly’ could be seen as sensual. Does the mistress experience these erotic thoughts too,
and is thus fanning herself to quell her feelings? Duffy now gives us the very sensual image
of the servant as she works ‘my slow heat entering each pearl.’ There is something
animalistic about this, as though she is marking the necklace with her warmth, her heat, her
scent. The girl admits that she is happy to ‘work willingly’ such is her desire to please. The
next line: ‘Slack on my neck, her rope’ suggests that the mistress has quite literally a hold on
her servant, as she is in the position of power, but her servant is also so enthralled by her that
she wants to do her bidding.

Third Stanza

The servant is open about her admiration, indeed fixation, with the lady. The opening short
sentence ‘She’s beautiful’ requires no elaboration; it is a fact. When she is out, dancing with
‘tall men’ her servant dreams that she will be distracted by her own scent upon the pearls. She
wants her mistress to be ‘puzzled by my faint, persistent scent’. This is a clever use of
oxymoron to show the lingering quality of the musk which infuses the pearls. Just as she
spends her time fantasizing about her mistress, she wants this feeling to be mutual. The
strength of her attraction is mirrored by her scent which is evident despite the “French
perfume’. The reader feels sorry for the servant girl, relegated to her ‘attic bed’ while her
mistress is out dancing, dressed in her finery.

The metaphor used at the end of this stanza to describe the pearls as ‘her milky stones’ gives
them another distinctly feminine, earthy quality. It makes them appear more porous, as
though they will easily absorb her heat and warmth.

Fourth Stanza

This stanza shows us more of the intimate rituals that take place between the women:
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I dust her shoulders with a rabbit’s foot,

Watch the soft blush seep through her skin

The sibilant ‘s’ sounds and long assonance of ‘seep’ suggest a sense of pleasure from this
encounter.

The reader wonders how firm these strokes from a ‘rabbit’s foot’ must be if they cause such a
blush on the firm skin of her shoulders. She uses the simile ‘like an indolent sigh’ which
suggests a sigh of pleasure. The experience is obviously a sensual one for the servant, and I
am not wholly unconvinced that it isn’t for her mistress too. It is now though that we get the
first indications of the servant’s frustration. She wants to give voice to her passion, but
cannot. There is something undeniably sensual in this image of her red lips caught in the
looking-glass. They ‘part’ but she stops herself disclosing how she feels.

Fifth and Sixth Stanza

This stanza opens with a two word sentence “Full moon’. The image of a full moon is
synonymous with sexuality and femininity. The mistress is delivered back to the grand house
in her carriage and we imagine her servant listening as the door slams and imagining her
every move. There is again a sense of ritual as she takes the jewels off and returns them to the
case. There is the sense that the connection is lost, while the servant dreams of her she
replaces the pearls and snaps the case shut, signifying that their relationship is nothing more
than that of a typical mistress and servant.

The ellipsis in line two and line one of the next stanza shows how she savours every image in
her head as her mistress disrobes, before:

‘slipping naked into bed, the way

She always does…’

The use of enjambment here shows the girl relishing these images, before the ellipsis bring in
a more wistful tone as she keenly feels her solitude. She is alone without even the comfort of
the pearls which ‘are cooling’ downstairs. She is trapped in the torment of unrequited love,
summed up effectively in the last sentence:

All night

I feel their absence and I burn.

The use of the word ‘burn’ shows the strength of her feelings and the acuteness of her pain,
as does the word ‘all’, used here and in stanza one:

All day I think of her,

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This is the love that dare not speak its name since it transgresses the boundaries of both class
and sexuality

About Carol Ann Duffy

Carol Ann Duffy is the UK’s current Poet Laureate and one of its foremost voices in
contemporary poetry. She was born in Glasgow in 1955 and currently lives in Manchester
where she teaches in the university. Warming Her Pearls is found in her anthology Selling
Manhattan from 1987.

Summary

“Warming Her Pearls” is a free verse poem written by Scottish poet Carol Ann Duffy. It is a
dramatic monologue told from the perspective of a maid who pines for the mistress she
serves. The poem is set in Britain’s Victorian era, the period spanning 1837 to 1901, during
which same-gender relationships were forbidden. Unable to express her desires, the poem's
speaker channels her lust into the pearl necklace that her mistress directs her to wear,
warming it to bring out the pearls' natural luster. Published in 1987, “Warming Her Pearls” is
one of Duffy’s earliest poems about queer love, which has since become a prominent theme
in her writing.

Against the speaker's skin lies her mistress's pearl necklace. Her mistress directs her to wear
it, warming the pearls to bring out their luster, until the evening, when she will brush her
mistress's hair. At 6:00 pm, the speaker puts the warmed, shining pearls around her mistress's
neck, which is cold and pale. The speaker spends her entire day thinking about her mistress.

Meanwhile, the mistress lounges in a sitting room, thinking about whether she should wear a
gown made of silk or taffeta later that night. She fans herself as she ponders these matters.
Meanwhile, the speaker works, glad to do so. Her body grows warm as she completes her
tasks, and that warmth is gradually transferred to the pearls. The necklace hangs loosely on
her neck as if it is a rope belonging to her mistress.

The speaker finds her mistress beautiful. Confined to servants' quarters in the attic, she lies in
bed, dreaming of her mistress. The speaker imagines that the mistress is dancing with tall
men, who are confused by conflicting aromas. Beneath her mistress's French perfume, the
speaker's subtle but persistent scent lingers, having been transferred to her mistress along
with the pearls, which gleam like creamy jewels.

As the speaker applies powder to her mistress's shoulders with a rabbit's foot, she watches her
mistress's skin take on a soft pink hue, gently, like casually letting out a sigh. The speaker
looks at herself in her mistress's mirror and her flushed mouth opens slightly, as if she wishes
to speak.
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The speaker's mistress rides home in a carriage as a full moon shines outside. The speaker
pictures every movement her mistress makes: she undresses, then removes her jewelry, places
the pearls into their case with her slender hand, and slips into bed naked.

She does this every night, the speaker imagines. While her mistress sleeps, the speaker lies
awake, thinking about the pearls, which are now getting cold since no one is wearing them.
Without an object into which she can channel her fiery passion, the speaker burns with lust
and frustration all through the night.