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THE MAP WOMAN - Coggle Diagram

- - - - After her transformation, finally coming to terms with where she was born, nothing really changes. Duffy uses a rhetorical question to signal how the woman is still unsure of her own identity, ‘was she looking for?’. The semantics of death ‘ghost’, ‘dead in’, and ‘suicided letter’ could represent how her identity has been partly destroyed by this change. Yet, not to the extent she thought it would. She longed for a new start, a completely fresh approach to life. Indeed, there is a moment of false hope. Duffy writes, ‘sun glitter’. While ‘glittered’ may be understood as a moment of happiness and hope, it could also be a reference to Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure: “All that glisters is not gold”. Duffy states that this happiness is only a false promise.
      - Indeed, ‘Deep in the bone/old streets’ are still present. Although the upper layer of identity has been removed, the Map-Woman will change her own history. She can come to terms with things, such as her parents’ deaths, but will never be able to change having lived in this location. The ‘old streets’ will be a part of her ‘bone’ forever, deep inside her body. The imagery of ‘tunnelled and burrowed’ furthers the seething nature of the city, the memories still locked inside her. She will never truly be able to forget the past and reform herself.
      - The final rhyme across ‘bone’ and ‘home’ solidifies the inescapable identity. The neatness of the final rhyme chimes back to the beginning of the poem, ‘tattoo’, ‘map grew’ representing the internal identity. The Map-Woman is never able to be free of her past, it lives deep within her psyche.
      - There is a sense of guilt that people commonly experience when moving away from their childhood town and parents etc. The Map-Woman's life was incredibly complex- she clearly suffered traumatic events in her childhood yet through yearning so intensely to escape and then returning, she feels a sense of guilt after attempting to strip her idenitity completely. This is a common feeling for many people when they grow up. She seems punished (possibly by herself) for shedding her old skin, and is uncomfortable in her new skin "her skin itched, like a rash, like a slow burn" Duffy therefore explores the turmoil between removal of identity and creation of a new identity.