The Devil’s Wife Carol Ann Duffy

General Notes:

Although Carol Ann Duffy has not named this woman, there are
various clues in the poem that indicate she is Myra Hindley, the
female half of the notorious Moors Murders duo who horrified 1960s
England with their crimes. The devil is personified as her lover, the
other convicted murderer, Ian Brady. The five parts of the Dramatic
Monologue (a poem in which a single voice speaks directly to its
audience) chart her attraction to Ian Brady, confession of further
crimes, her religious conversion, the debate over whether she
should be released and her musing upon the impact of her actions.

Myra Hindley was 18 when she met Ian Brady at work. She was
fascinated by him, and seemed such a willing disciple that he soon
included her in his plans for ‘the perfect murder’. She was to lure
children into her car and drive them out to the Yorkshire Moors,
where Brady would rape and murder them. They killed four children
whose bodies were dumped on Saddleworth Moor on the edge of the
Peak district outside Manchester: John Kilbride (12), Lesley Ann
Downey (10), Keith Bennett (12) and Pauline Reade (16). One of the
most appalling aspects of their crime was the tape-recording by the
murderers of two of the children’s screams for mercy. They also
photographed their victims The murder of their last victim, Edward
Evans (17) was witnessed by a new recruit of Brady’s, and, horrified
by what he had seen, he reported it to the police.

The mugshot of Hindley taken after her arrest shows her glowering
out from under a stack of peroxided hair with a stony face, looking
far older than her 21 years and completely without remorse. Myra
Hindley was sentenced to life imprisonment for her part in the
murders. Despite the fact that this usually means a maximum of 25
years, the country was so horrified by her procuring of young
victims that she was never released. She died in prison in
November 2002, having served 39 years. Although Myra never saw
Ian Brady again after their imprisonment, she wrote to him for many
years and did not confess to the murders until he did so – more than
twenty years after the fact.

Many details in the poem identify the speaker as Myra, but in

naming the poem ‘The Devil’s Wife’ she becomes every woman
demonised by her association with an evil partner. It is clear that
there are certain individuals who seem to embody everything that
we regard as evil and repugnant. In deciding who would be the
most likely wife for the Devil, Duffy chose Hindley on the basis of
the crimes that left terrible psychological scars on families and the
national consciousness.
1. DIRT (Summary)

The title of this part of the poem works on many different levels: it
suggests the sort of revelation made in a tabloid newspaper;
provides a summary of the sort of people Brady and Hindley were;
and also chillingly denotes the shallow dirt or soil graves of their
victims.

This section of the poem outlines the circumstances of how Myra

Hindley met Ian Brady. It focuses on the intense physical attraction
between the pair, painting a vivid portrait of Brady and offering
startling description of how she felt under his influence.

Ian Brady is immediately the focus of this opening section: ‘The

Devil was one of the men at work’ and the theme of evil is
apparent from the outset. Hindley, as the narrator, wants to
emphasise why she was attracted to him and this is conveyed
quickly in the second line: ‘Different. Fancied himself’. The single
word sentence ‘Different’ underlines his main attraction for her.
Having recently broken off her engagement to local boy Ronnie
Sinclair, seeking something more exciting than a house and a
gaggle of kids, Brady’s misfit air and dangerous background are a
magnet for Myra.

She also views him as a challenge: ‘Didn’t flirt. Didn’t speak. I’d
stare him out..’
This calculating attitude, with its depiction of Myra’s patience and
coolness foreshadows the cold-eyed image presented to the public
after her arrest. She wants him badly but instinctively feels that she
must set herself apart from the other girls in the office whom he
looks at ‘as though they were dirt’.

Their first meeting outside work sets the tone of their relationship
from the outset, and while she is not portrayed as weak or
vulnerable, she is most certainly depicted as being completely
under his influence. His first action, to light both of their cigarettes
in his mouth, signifies his dominance and the narrator’s memory of
their first sexual experience together is one of utter brutality: ‘He
bit my breast. His language was foul. He entered me.’ Her
recall, however, is not tinged with any sense of regret, rather
resignation, or even satisfaction about the way things were between
them, and ‘he entered me’ has a dual meaning in that the Devil
possesses her spiritually too: ‘I swooned in my soul’. Her swoon
suggests a moment of ecstasy, that she is now totally besotted with
him. In the next line she reports Brady’s speech: ‘We’re the same,
he said’, and Myra’s reaction to these words could almost be
described as a moment of epiphany: ‘That’s it’. These words
underline the finality of the moment: that she understands Ian is
indeed her destiny and she won’t be able to pull herself away from
him. This stanza finishes with a description of his insistence on her
involvement in a fetishistic ritual; they drove to nearby woods to
‘bury a doll.’

The third stanza of this section builds on this sinister activity,

‘looking at playgrounds, fairgrounds’ where children could be
observed, and conjures up the picture of the Devil’s wife as a
battered woman who has learned to live with violence and becomes
stone-hearted. Clearly, the descriptions of her ‘tongue of stone’
and ‘black slates for eyes’ suggest an unfeeling disposition and
prepare for her presentation as Medusa in part 2. The conclusion to
section 1 has the narrator describe herself as ‘Nobody’s Mam’ in a
short, abrupt sentence. This reveals her growing awareness that she
has ‘crossed the line’ in terms of acceptable human behaviour; and
it will make maternal experience impossible.

Analysis of Language:

 title ‘Dirt’ works on several levels

 adjectives to paint portrait of Brady
 alliteration ‘gave as good as I got’ emphasises her
hardness/determination
 enjambement (run-on-line) at end of 2 nd line of each stanza, to
elaborate on opening statements/descriptions of each stanza
 double-meaning of ‘he entered me’ – physically and spiritually
 stone-hearted imagery – ‘ tongue of stone’, ‘two black slates
for eyes’
 ‘nobody’s Mam’ – as well as simply telling us maternal
experience will now be impossible, ‘Mam’ is used to highlight
the northern dialect of the narrator

2. MEDUSA (Summary)

In the form of Medusa she returns to ‘the wood where we’d

buried/the doll’. The doll is an analogue of a murdered child and
the repetition of ‘I know’ shows how guilty the woman is, but she
tries to blame the Devil for her being what she is: ‘He held my
heart in his fist and he squeezed it dry.’ When the narrator
then goes on to describe her ‘ Medusa stare’ she is referring to
the time of her court case. The ‘Medusa stare’ that, as the Greek
myth says, could turn living things to stone is an accurate
description of Myra Hindley’s expression in the famous photograph
of her at the time of her conviction. This cold-eyed, bleach-blonde
mugshot was the only image of her ever presented to the public,
and it is what the reader pictures when the narrator states ‘I heard
the judge summing up. I didn’t care.’ When she follows this
with ‘It was nowt to me’ in the next stanza, we are confronted
with the reality of a criminal who seemed utterly remorseless at the
time. Carol Ann Duffy captures Hindley’s north-western variety of
English in ‘Mam’ and ‘nowt’, making it perfectly clear whom Medusa
represents in this section.

There is an interesting contrast in the feelings displayed by the

narrator in stanzas three and four of this section. In 3 we see her
defiance and remorselessness, preferring instead to focus on the
time when she’ll be free to resume her relationship with Ian Brady:
‘I thought in twelve, fifteen, we’d be out on the open road.’.
In stanza four, however, the narrator is catapulted into utter panic
when she confronts the reality of her sentence: ‘But life, they
said, means life…I howled in my cell.’ As it dawns on her that
the British public view her involvement in the case as unthinkable,
her desperation increases. This is where she first repeats the
poem’s title, calling herself ‘The Devil’s Wife’ and going on to
state that being a woman has made her even more of a villain than
Brady in the eyes of the public. Such was the repugnance against
her ‘unnatural’ acts that she would never have the chance to prove
herself rehabilitated – nobody would ever be interested in her
rehabilitation, just her punishment.

This section concludes with her animal-like fury at the prospect of

life imprisonment: ‘I howled in my cell’, and a contradictory
question, ‘If the Devil was gone then how could this be hell?’
Clearly the narrator believes herself to be in hell because Ian is not
there with her – being without him is like being in hell. But it is the
presence of the Devil himself that defines hell as a place, and he is
absent.

Analysis of Language:

 witch imagery- ‘flew in chains over the wood’

 doll as an analogue of a murdered child
 repetition of ‘I know’ shows guilt, but she still blames the
Devil (Brady)
 ‘Medusa stare’ – Greek myth of a stare which could turn
living things to stone. Used here to refer to famous
photograph at time of conviction
 ‘nowt’ also used to capture Hindley’s dialect, to make it clear
who Medusa represents
 regular rhyme scheme begins to appear in this section –
rhyming couplets end stanzas two, three and four.
Contributes to the pace / suggests the suddenness with which
 she is catapulted from freedom to incarceration, and from
defiance into panic
 ‘twelve, fifteen’ not saying ‘twelve or fifteen years’ suggests
casualness and lack of concern
 ‘Dying inside.’ Short, abrupt description to emphasise horror
as she realises meaning of her life sentence
 animal imagery – ‘howled’
 contradiction within the last question – ‘If the Devil was
gone then how could this be hell?’

3. BIBLE (Summary)

This section builds on the fear and rage experienced by the narrator
in the previous one: ‘I said No not me I didn’t I couldn’t I
wouldn’t’. This stream-of-consciousness style, with its obvious lack
of punctuation or pause, conveys, almost breathlessly, the chaotic
mind of a woman in panic. There are repeated denials, ‘I didn’t I
couldn’t I wouldn’t’ and these are also reflected in the phrase ‘not
in the room’ which occurs four times.

Section 3 also shows her changing her story out of pure self-
interest. Her assertions of not being in the room turn out to be lies,
as we know now that a horrific tape recording was discovered which
contains Hindley’s voice and places her in the room during the
torture and murder of Lesley Ann Downey.

The remainder of this section focuses on her grasping at anything to

save herself. She calls for help from ‘a lawyer a vicar a priest’,
going on to request the attendance of a TV crew, journalist and even
her MP.

The religious references, to a priest and vicar, are quite interesting

here because during Myra Hindley’s incarceration she converted to
Catholicism, and many people viewed this as a convenient means of
attempting to apply leverage in order to secure parole.

Clearly, the whole section is one of repetition and chaos as she

desperately tries to save herself and cast the blame on Brady: ‘it
was him it was him.’ Here we see the mind of someone who is
trying to shut out the reality

Interestingly, what appears the most chaotic and rambling section

of the poem is actually very tightly structured. It is organised in the
form of a sonnet, which follows a regular pattern of three quatrains
(four lines stanzas) followed by a rhyming couplet (a pair of rhyming
lines), the rhyme scheme following the pattern ab,ab;cd,cd;ef,ef;gg.
This is an inspired idea on the part of the poet as it suggests the
extremely manipulative thinking and planning of Myra Hindley; that
her panicked babbling is yet another form of control on her part.

Analysis of Language:

 section written as a sonnet – 3 quatrains and a rhyming

couplet – and this carefully organised structure represents
Hindley’s crafty mind
 however, the reader does not initially recognise this form, as
the narration is chaotic/stream-of-consciousness: ‘I said No
not me I didn’t I couldn’t I wouldn’t’
 repetitive denials: ‘not in the room’
 lack of punctuation to emphasise panic and breathlessness –
‘a lawyer a vicar a priest’
 repetition of ‘it was him’ to shift blame
 interesting contrast between certainty – ‘not in the room’
and vagueness – ‘maybe this maybe that not sure’

4. NIGHT (Summary)

In this short section the narrator reflects on her years in prison. It

paints a nightmarish picture of her time there, comparing the
dreariness of her existence to one long, ‘fifty-year night’. When
she describes ‘words that crawl out of the wall’ we are
presented with an image that is repulsive and suggests a level of
insanity. The ‘words’ to which she is referring are those comments
and newspaper headlines from which there is no escape: ‘Suffer.
Monster. Burn in Hell.’ These short, syllabic utterances
demonstrate that during her long fifty-year night the public
hounding of her has been relentless, and attitudes towards her have
never softened. It also reminds us of the use she made of religion in
her time in prison as it is reminiscent of the blessing of ‘Father.
Son. Holy Spirit.’

This section also suggests that the narrator will confess in the
morning: ‘I will finally tell’, however there is a suggestion that she
will make people wait; she will not tell the truth straight away but
‘when morning comes’. This prolongs the suffering for the victims’
families and reduces any sympathy we might have had for her
situation. In fact, Myra Hindley did confess in 1986 to two further
murders, but only after having made the families of Pauline Reade
and Keith Bennett wait for information for over twenty years. No
evidence had previously connected Brady and Hindley to the
murders of Reade or Bennett so, despite the confidence of the
police that they committed the crimes, it was only possible to
prosecute them for the murders of Downey, Kilbride and Evans.

The final line of the poem, a single word placed in a stanza of its
own, leaves some readers convinced about the evil nature of this
narrator. ‘Amen’, which literally means ‘so be it’, is ironic in that it
shows a wicked person using religious language for her own ends.
This idea is also seen in Shakespeare’s ‘The Merchant of Venice’:
‘The Devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.’

However, the use of ‘Amen’ could be interpreted as an indication of

her turning to religion for solace, depending on how sympathetically
the reader responds to the narrator.

Analysis of Language:

 word choice – ‘fifty year night’

 nightmare imagery, ‘words that crawl out of the wall’
 word choice – ‘finally’: this single word says so much about
her previous denials and unwillingness to give information to
victims’ families
 word choice – ‘tell’ rather than ‘confess’. Still a suggestion
that she doesn’t accept responsibility? She will pass on
information, but that’s all?
 irony of ‘Amen’ as a conclusion, and Shakespeare’s use of it
in ‘The Merchant of Venice’.

5. APPEAL (Summary)

The concluding section presents a multiplicity of ways in which the

woman might have been executed: ‘If I’d been stoned to death /
If I’d been hung by the neck’.
Had they been caught earlier, both Brady and Hindley would have
received the death penalty, but that had been abolished just months
before. The poet seems to question the use of the death penalty for
cases like this however, suggesting such a punishment is too quick
and does not inflict sufficient vengence upon the criminals: ‘If life
means life means life means life.’ It would seem that the
repetition of ‘means life’ here asks us to consider what a life
sentence really means.

The use of anaphora (the repetition of a word or phrase at the

beginning of successive clauses) is interesting in this section
because it reinforces the nagging quality of the questions
surrounding the capital punishment versus imprisonment debate in
the first ten lines. The ten ‘Ifs’ are halted by the single ‘But’ that
begins the separated final two lines in which the Devil’s wife
(Hindley) asks what effect her crimes had on the national psyche
and on herself. The fact that she uses the past tense – ‘But what
did I do to us all, to myself / When I was the Devil’s wife?’-
indicates that she claims to have changed.

Analysis of Language:

 anaphora – repeating ‘If I’d been…’ at the start of each line

to make the reader consider the debate about capital
punishment versus imprisonment
 repetition of ‘means life’ to encourage us to reflect on what a
life sentence really means
 single word ‘But’ to change direction from the methods of
execution to the narrator’s reflection on the wider effect of her
crimes
 past tense to suggest she’s changed. Can we sympathise with
this narrator?