Examine the view that 'Feminine Gospels' is solely concerned with female suffering

In ‘The Long Queen’, Duffy establishes the suffering caused by patriarchal oppression, but suggests that the resulting subversive nature of women is one of beauty and power. Duffy opens the poem (and the collection) with the blunt and definitive ‘The Long Queen couldn’t die’, introducing the idea of a mythical representation of female experience. Despite the noun ‘Queen’ denoting power and authority, reinforced by the monosyllabic words and end-stopped line, Duffy conveys the extent of female suffering through the use of modality. Duffy uses the phrase ‘couldn’t die’ to simultaneously convey the Long Queen’s immortality and God-like status, but also her lack of autonomy over her existence and hence her powerlessness. Such a paradoxical opening line befits a collection that promises to tell the ‘gospel’ truth about womanhood: the truth, Duffy suggests, is complicated.   Duffy suggests that suffering is inevitably present in women’s lives; however she suggests that its rejection can inspire a fascinating form of power and freedom that is worthy of celebration. In 'The Laughter of Stafford Girls' High', Duffy uses the motif of the laughter to symbolise the joy that can be gained from challenging the repressive, conservative regime for both the girls and the teachers, suggesting that it enables women to fulfil their potential. Here, Duffy alludes to Lacan and Cixous's principle of ‘female jouissance’ and the danger of its suppression. Duffy describes ‘the hush like an air balloon/ tethered with ropes’, using the uncomfortable imagery of unnatural restriction to convey the stifling atmosphere in which the girls are educated. Although Duffy uses the biographical ‘Stafford Girls’ High’ as her setting for the mock epic, such an environment is representative of an oppressive patriarchal society in which women are denied gratification and fulfilment, be it on an academic level (Dr Bream hopes the girls will ‘grow to be/ the finest of England’s daughters and mothers and wives’, a psychological level (the ‘mad, muttering, free’ Mrs Mckay’s suicide), or a sexual level (Miss Fife and Miss Batt’s ‘silently virtuous love’). Despite this setting initially appearing overwhelming, Duffy suggests that even the smallest individual acts can cause personal liberty and collective solidarity: the smallest ‘low and vulgar giggle’ is capable of ‘yank[ing] at the silence’, inspiring ‘clumps of laughter’ to ‘sprout among the row upon row of girls’. The collective noun and the description of ‘row upon row of girls’ emphasises the importance of female unity and the power it can yield, a similar, subversive power to that depicted in ‘The Long Queen’. The noun ‘clumps’ and the verb ‘sprout’ also convey the momentum and pace of the spread of the laughter and their connotations of plants and greenery suggest that the laughter is life-giving, strong, and ultimately independent of its surroundings. Indeed, by the end of the poem, ‘seagulls, like schoolgirls, laughed’ ‘in the cold sky’, the simile conveying the extent to which the female solidarity between the girls and the teachers has transcended the suffering that patriarchy (‘the cold sky’) aims to impose. This could also be commenting on the successes of the second-wave feminist movement, which took place during the 1960s when this poem is set. Therefore, while Duffy presents another manifestation of suffering that is initially overpowering and pervasive, she suggests that the rebellion it causes empowers women and allows them to make much needed changes in society.