These stanzas begin with the phrase ‘She was History’, the short sentence contrasting the following lengthy descriptions of moments in history. Duffy’s use of a short sentence creates a blunt line, furthered by the use of an end stop. These poetic techniques culminate in a bold depiction of the woman, the grandeur of ‘History’ being attributed to the equally impressive ‘She’ – both being capitalized in this short sentence. This also brings about the idea of patriarchal control throughout history, and inn documents of history where women are forgotten as observers. "His story"- she was his story... suggests that women are only part of a man's story and a man's world.
Duffy uses these stanzas to move through different events in history, each one being witnessed by women. It is interesting to note that the verbs that Duffy uses, ‘been’, ‘seen’, ‘watched’, ‘witnessed’, ‘observed’, are all passive instead of active. This could suggest that women are silent observers in history, watching passively while events happen around them. This links to the historic conception of a woman’s place, Duffy focusing on the idea that women’s perspectives were deemed less important, therefore taking on a passive, rather than active, role in history.
Many poetic techniques are used to emphasize the events, including plosive ‘b’ across ‘blew out his brains’ to further the horror of this imagery, horrific imagery within ‘burnt at the stake’, and enjambment to reflect the movement of the children way on the trains while they ‘waved/their little hands’
Duffy begins each stanza with imagery of sight "been there" "witnessed" "seen up close", emphasising women witnessing events but not being part of them or not being labelled as part of them- men are always active participants in history whilst women are not part of it. Whilst Duffy dismantles the actual involvement of women throughout history, she also dismantles the lack of documentation of women, the lack of representation of women in literature.
Duffy presents the history of war and conflict predominantly as violent and negative which is interesting because this shows the damage men have done throughout history, and the violence of the patriarchy. Duffy subverts the common ideas were one force is seen as a hero- another is seen as evil. In this poem, no one is a hero or part of a glorious event. This also serves as a criticism of the idea of 'glory of war'.