Poem Analysis

of

Thetis

Efforts by Aarav Shah

 A Background of
Thetis
In Greek mythology Thetis is a nereid or sea
nymph, one of the daughters of Nereus the Titan.
She is pursued by several men, including Zeus, the
King of the gods, and Poseidon, the sea god, but
neither will marry her once they discover The
Fates‘ prediction that she will give birth to a child
who will be greater than his father. Instead Thetis
is promised to the mortal Peleus and has his baby.
That child is Achilles, the hero of Homer’s Iliad.
Like her father, Thetis has the power of
metamorphosis — that is, she has the ability to
change herself into another form or incarnation.
This ability gives her power and strength. The final
stanza though ambiguous, suggests Thetis’s
triumph; the child’s birth, though violent and
unpleasant, is presented as a victory.
 Line by Line Analysis The opening immediately introduces the idea that
Thetis has the gift of metamorphosis: she is able to
transform herself from one physical shape to another.
Stanza 1: Thetis represents women’s vulnerability at the hands of
men, as well as the capacity of women to adapt and
survive or even dominate. The fact that her form is
I shrank myself
initially small and bird-sized doesn’t prevent her from
to the size of a bird in the hand outwitting men. In lines 4 - 5, Thetis appears to enjoy
of a man. her life as a small creature. The second sentence is
Sweet, sweet, was the small song lyrical, with the word ‘sweet’ repeated for emphasis
and the alliterative and sibilant ’s' sounds, mimicking
that I sang,
perhaps the ‘tweet-tweet’ of birdsong. The last line is
till I felt the squeeze of his fist. an indication of how the man is aggressive in nature.
 The first line implies, perhaps, that Thetis is trying on
the one hand to escape the abusive man and yet she has
to take breath, be watchful and think how best to
transform herself. In the following lines, An albatross
Line by Line Analysis round one’s neck is used as a metaphor for a self-
imposed burden. Here Thetis carries the albatross in
order to ‘follow a ship’. The reason isn’t clear. It could
Stanza 2: be positive — either to be fed by the sailors or perhaps
to build a mutually beneficial relationship with the men
— or else negative, as a way of accepting this
Then I did this:
unsatisfactory man who means to harm her. Whatever
shouldered the cross of an albatross the reason it is of no benefit as she feels her ‘wings’ to
up the hill of the sky. be ‘clipped by the squint of a crossbow’s eye.’ It
Why? To follow a ship. confirms that the man who pursues her wishes to
But I felt my wings damage her. The ‘cross’ is doubly significant as it
describes the shape of the albatross in flight, but more
clipped by the squint of a crossbow's ey importantly it is a reference to Jesus who carried the
e. burden of the cross to his crucifixion. The ‘squint’
could be interpreted as something sinister; it suggests
careful aim and there is the uneasy implication that
Thetis could be destroyed by this vengeful man.
 The third stanza is even more spare. We gain the sense
Line by Line Analysis that Thetis is truly in a hurry, and yet she is calm; there
is a sense that she is one step ahead of the man.We
have the brief statement of her small size — like the
bird in stanza one — and the item she is looking for; a
Stanza 3:
snake. There is also a double meaning. The size 8
might be a reference to modern women’s preoccupation
So I shopped for a suitable shape with body shape and weight. The snake might be
Size 8. Snake. significant. The hissing, alliterative, sibilant ’s' sounds
are snake-like and threatening.The man is ‘my
Big Mistake.
charmer’ — he can charm not only snakes but also
Coiled in my charmer's lap, women — and she is ‘coiled’ in his ‘lap’ and yet she
I felt the grasp of his strangler's clasp knows this is a ‘Big Mistake’. Grasp and clasp is harsh
at my nape. and could signify her gasp of shock when he begins to
strangle her. The word ‘grasp’ also echoes the
threatening ‘squeeze’ of the first stanza.
 Line by Line Analysis In the first four lines there are words relating to a wild
hunting creature. Moving forward we realise that it is
Thetis who becomes the predator with ‘a zebra’s gore’
Stanza 4: in her ‘jaw’. The piling of rhyme upon rhyme suggest
that Thetis is in control — this is the female now in
transcendence and that she is a hunter galloping after
Next I was roar, claw, 50lb paw,
prey. The next line has ‘gold eye’, this could be
jungle-floored, meateater, raw, because many jungle predators — lions, tigers etc. —
a zebra's gore have naturally gold-coloured eyes. It may also
in my lower jaw. foreshadow the reference to fire and flame in the last
But my gold eye saw stanza. The ‘guy in the grass with the gun’ transforms
the stanza, it is now the man who is the predator. The
the guy in the grass with the gun. Twelv gun is 'twelve-bore’; a lethal killing machine.
e-bore.

Line by Line Analysis
Stanza 5:
I sank through the floor of the earth
to swim in the sea.
Mermaid, me, big fish, eel, dolphin,
whale, the ocean's opera singer.
Over the waves the fisherman came
with his hook and his line and his sinke
r.
sea-creatures, including a ‘mermaid’ and ‘the ocean’s
opera singer’. Thetis is a sea nymph, and comes from
the ocean, which means that going to the sea would be
like going back home. ‘Ocean’s opera singer’ is used to
describe the whale, where ‘whalesong’ being an
accepted term for their communications — a haunting
rhythmical call. Another interpretations is where the
'mermaid’ and the ‘opera singer’ might refer to the
Sirens, mythical sea creatures who lured sailors to their
death through their beautiful singing. Thetis, having
started as a small agile bird, has worked her way
through various incarnations to something truly
threatening, a mythical dangerous creature who can
lure men to their destruction. In the last two lines, the
man pursues and once more she is on the defensive. On
this occasion the ‘fisherman’ isn’t fooled by Thetis but
instead aims to catch her in her mermaid form. The
expression hook, line and sinker is an idiom that refers
to the method used by fisherman to secure their catch,
but is also an expression to indicate gullibility. Thetis
and this man are embroiled in a power struggle in

Line by Line Analysis
Stanza 6:
I changed my tune
to racoon, skunk, stoat,
to weasel, ferret, bat, mink, rat.
The taxidermist sharpened his knives
.
I smelled the stink of formaldehyde.
Stuff that.
The first line of the sixth stanza signals an abrupt
change of mood; far less threatening than previously. It
is notable that Thetis was a Siren who sang in the
previous stanza. Here she is silent. Thetis transforms
herself into small furry creatures. In the next two lines
Skunks are known for their terrible smell; bats are
associated with the spread of rabies; rats are associated
with sewers Weasels have a different association.
Weasel words is an expression used to describe vague
statements. In the next two lines there is a reference to
Taxidermy which is the art of preserving a dead
creature by disembowelling and stuffing it to preserve
it. The chemical used is formaldehyde which has a
strong, distinctive and unpleasant smell. We can
assume that the taxidermist is Thetis' stalking man —
and being killed and stuffed is clearly a fate she wants
to avoid. The last line is a expression to convey
contempt or disgust. It is also what the taxidermist,
literally, does. Again, Thetis has used her wits and
escaped.

Line by Line Analysis
Stanza 7:
I was wind, I was gas,
I was all hot air, trailed
clouds for hair.
I scrawled my name with a hurricane,
when out of the blue
roared a fighter plane.
In the first five lines the mood changes again, from
amusing but threatening furry creatures with well-
defined shapes and distinctive features, to formless gas
and air. The words ‘gas’ and ‘hot air’ are ways of
describing meaningless and purposeless talk that
amounts to nothing. ‘Trailed clouds for hair’ suggests
the exhaust from an aeroplane, which is appropriate
given the last line. The expression ‘out of the blue’ is a
pun. It is a way of saying ‘from out of nowhere’, but it
is also used in the literal sense here as a reference to the
sky. The meaning of the line ‘I scrawled my name with
a hurricane’ can be debated. It could be a statement of
Thetis' enormous power, that she has cosmic elements
under her control and so is able to display her strength
to her pursuer. Predictably, even this is snatched from
him. In the last lines the use of ‘fighter plane’, of
course, destroys Thetis' power. The fighter plane
would, of course, have been flown by Thetis' abusive
 Line by Line Analysis
Stanza 8:
Then my tongue was flame
and my kisses burned,
but the groom wore asbestos.
So I changed, I learned,
turned inside out - or that's
how it felt when the child burst out.
The last stanza is a resolution. In the first two lines the
mood changes to lyrical, with a sexualised Thetis
aflame and giving burning kisses. The word ‘groom’
implies that she has succumbed to him and agreed to
marry him. In the third line the use of Asbestos was
because it is a heat-resistant substance that means he
was able to resist her ‘burning’ kisses. In the fourth and
fifth line Thetis has her final transformation and this
one is radical. Instead of a quick-thinking
metamorphosis to cheat the man, Thetis says she
‘learned’ and ‘turned inside out’. It is the momentous
transformation of childbirth that changes Thetis to a
different sort of woman. A mother. In the sixth line the
fact that the child ‘burst out’ is significant. The baby
isn’t born slowly but arrives violently, transforming his
mother from cleverness, independence and adaptability
into another sort of female; a powerful maternal one.
A Summary of Thetis

Throughout the poem Thetis

changes into different animals
each trying to escape from men.
However, she is ultimately
captured and gives birth to a
child: Achilles. Unlike some of
Duffy’s other poems, she is
named, not given the name of her
husband This is perhaps because
she’s more well known than her
husband, Peleus.