Queen Herod’s Power Play
I noticed three types of women in Duffy’s collection The World’s Wife. First, the preexisting heroines given a new voice, like “Little Red-Cap,” “Thetis,” “Pilate’s Wife” (Matthew 27:17-19) and others. Second, the apocryphal wives of famous male characters, as in “Mrs Midas” or “Mrs Quasimodo.” The third category is most intriguing to me: the original heroes are re-imagined as women. I think “Queen Kong” and “Queen Herod” belong here. (I’m using the terms heroine and hero somewhat loosely. It’s a matter of perspective. Everyone is the protagonist of their own story, right?)
The speaker of “Queen Herod” styles herself “the King and Queen of here—Herod, me.” She is probably pointing to Herod, then herself. Two. But I also read this as “I am Herod. I am both King and Queen, the one and absolute ruler.” The use of a comma in “Herod, me” makes that just ambiguous enough for that unusual interpretation. Herod is a character in the poem, separate from his queen, but he’s barely relevant. Queen Herod, not her husband, orders her Chief of Staff to kill “each mother’s son.” Contrary to the familiar narrative, she is the dominant figure, eclipsing the supposed king.
Wise men are instead “Three Queens at the Palace gates,” also called “wise,” following a star, looking for a baby boy, riding camels. All the signs are there, but here too the gender is inverted. I didn’t catch this the first time, but they tell Queen Herod to watch for a “star in the East.” They’re from the East (Matthew 2:1-2). They followed the star west to Judea. So are they talking about a different new star?
One more thing: Herod seems to rape the “black Queen” of the three and after this, Queen Herod sends her force of destruction East. This seems like a reenactment of history, where colonial powers from the so-called West effectively rape the cultures distant from them. I don’t think Duffy wants us to sympathize with the brutality of the colonial power.
Sources:
Duffy, Carol Ann. The World’s Wife. Faber and Faber, 2000.
“Queen Herod” pp. 7-10.
Image: La Farge, John. “The Wise Men out of the East.” 1868. Wikimedia Commons.
I couldn’t find any version of “The Wise Women from the East,” but we might at least imagine that the figure on the black horse is Queen Herod, perhaps talking to her Chief of Staff, “a mountain man.”
6 Replies to “Queen Herod’s Power Play”
That is a very interesting take on the poem! I noticed some of the things that you mentioned, but didn’t notice others that helps to bring the poem in better focus for me! I wonder why she wanted to invert the gender of the well-known male characters in this story to be female instead. To go along with her theme of gender in the novel? Maybe to show a new way that it could have gone had everyone been a woman instead?
I appreciate your thinking through the three different broad ways that Duffy has changed the stories, Dane. I think you’ve covered all of the transformations that she makes. Well…except for possibly the “Devil’s Wife.”
I think the Queen Herod poem was the most surprising poem for me, probably because Duffy did have Queen Herod order the Biblical killing. This poem seems like it would require a lot more mental energy for me to understand in terms of the rationale behind Queen Herod’s decisions, so I appreciate that you took some time to look at it further.
I really like the categories that you were able to place each poem in. I noticed the same thing but did not think through it enough to solidify patterns in the ways Duffy wrote the poems. I think that recognizing the different ways that these poems approach a narrative help it become more applicable to ourselves.
I noticed that there seemed to be distinct “classes” of women in this book, but I think you hit the nail on the head on what exactly those types were. I didn’t notice the east/west thing or even the rape part you mentioned. After reading this blog post, it’s cool to be able to go back and read some new things into this poem.
Really interesting how you tied colonialism in at the end there: never even thought to think about that! I really liked how you focused on the Queen’s apparent power over the King in this poem, which isn’t a theme we see in often in this collection of poems. For me the poem sort of presents a sort of “protective mother” narrative, making this poem unique among the others because it focuses on a woman’s role as a mother rather than as an individual, wife, or lover.