In our society the predator prey dynamics are evident in different classes’ interactions.

Cis-gendered heterosexual men, being the priviledged class, are set as predators, and the
traditional stereotypes of women and specifically women’s body parts are seen as prey,
something alluring and desiring, that men have to hunt and possess. Through the poems of
Duffy and the visual works of Sarah Lucas, I want to explore how these predator-prey relations
present gender roles.

First, I want to talk about Carol Duffy’s book of poems ‘The World’s Wife’, which was
published in 1999. In the poems Duffy elaborates on the topic of women’s sex appeal, and
shows how women’s image is perceived by men as a chasing target, while any kind of
relationships or sex with women even resembles a game. For instance, one of the most obvious
literary devices she uses is repetition. In the poem ‘Thetis’ it goes ‘Sweet, sweet was the small
song’ - it is a repetition of the same word. The word ‘sweet’ represents the supposed sweetness
of women’s nature, and also the sweetness of the hunt. While in the poem ‘Mrs. Quasimodo’ it
is the repetition of present participles of verbs: ‘gargling, or chanting slowly, calming me’, which
significantly slows the pace and by that makes women an easy target for the hunt.

Another thing that Duffy does is the expanded use of Symbolism. In ‘Thetis’, different forms of
transformation are listed one after another through both asyndetons (to racoon, skunk, stoat, to
weasel, ferret, bat, mink, rat) and polysyndetons (I was wind, I was gas, I was all hot air) - she
repeats the same structure in order to refer to an endless cycle of a chasing game. Another
example is used in the lines ‘But I felt my wings clipped by the squint of a crossbow's eye’ and
the clipped wings in here quite directly symbolize the lack of freedom, fear, and coercion.
Meanwhile, in ‘Mrs Quasimodo’ Duffy starts a big amount of lines with ‘I’ - for example, I
frightened cats; I lived alone up seven flights; I climbed the bell tower steps; I felt a thump of
confidence; etc. First person narration makes the reader sympathize with the prey, as this way it
is easy for the reader to put themselves in the prey’s place and they have no choice but to
perceive given situations from the prey’s perspective.

Now, I want to focus on one of the poems from this collection - ‘Little Red Cap’. It is the first
poem in ‘The World’s Wife’ collection and is a re-casting of the Brothers Grimm version of the
popular fairy tale ‘Little Red Riding Hood’. Almost right from the beginning Duffy creates a
noticeable tension within the poem - the tool that she chose for it is different rhymes. In the lines
number 1 and 3: ‘clearing, reading, staining’ she uses a consonant rhyme, whereas in lines 2
and 3: ‘drawl, paw, jaw’ it is an assonant rhyme. This tension is created by the juxtaposition
between these types of rhymes and it mimics the tension between Red Cap and the Wolf due to
the power imbalance which is created by the significant difference in their maturity levels.

Now, if we look at the line number 11 ‘My stockings ripped to shreds, scraps of red from my
blazer Snagged on twig and branch’ it is noticeable that Duffy uses repetitive sounds of sh sc st,
which makes the intonations of the sentence quite discontinuous, the sound of it comes out as
intense and rough, suggesting Wolf’s effortless dominance, which refers back to the predator
prey dynamics, as if pointing out that the hunt has begun. Right next, in the line 13 ‘But got
there, wolf’s lair, better beware’ the pace abruptly speeds up, as if Red Cap loses control over
the situation and realizes the Wolf was in control all along, short and rough rhymes here
emphasize one-sided power dynamics and suggest that everything is happening too fast for
Red Cup. Also, short sentences imply that at this point she only focuses on the main details of
the experience, as if she was put to the ‘alert mode’ and is now focusing on details in order to
survive within this hunt.

Other works that I want to discuss are the photography pieces of Sarah Lucas. In her
pictures she explores the difference between the male gaze and one's individual perception of
gender, making one aware of the implicit sexualisation of women. Most of her works are
revealing and vulgar, where certain body parts act as the composition centre in the pictures. By
that, she creates vulnerable gender-related images, which resemble exposed prey ready to be
caught and consumed by predators. For instance, in her works such as ‘Cigarette Tits’ or ‘Self
Portrait with Fried Eggs’ she puts regular objects above the areas of the female body which are
being commonly sexualized, representing the ‘male gaze’ above the real body expression.
Moreover, in ‘cigarette tits’ the breasts created from cigarettes and framed in a bra are visually
very contrast due to the use of sharp lines separating cigarettes from one another.

Whereas, in ‘Self Portrait with Fried Eggs’ she experiments with value and uses very
bright and saturated fried eggs which visually resemble breasts and are located in a suitable
place - covering the actual ones. This way, the high brightness of the eggs makes it stand out
from the rest of the picture. Therefore, in both pictures Lucas ironically sexualizes regular
objects by making them the most noticeable parts of the works, and this way she refers to how
easy it is to sexualize seemingly regular items, action or body parts, and to see a desirable prey
in vulnerable disadvantages of restricting gender roles.

My extract from Sarah Lucas’s works is ‘Chicken Knickers’, 1994. Here Lucas presents a
very vulnerable and disturbing picture of a ripped chicken corpse above an undressed human
body. One of the most powerful tools Lucas uses is contrast: a very dark background makes the
viewer believe that the possible surrounding environment is empty, and visually brings the
human figure to the front, making it the point of instant attention. Due to the high contrast of the
picture, parts of the body are half-hidden in the dark, which may imply that predators see only
the things they want to see instead of the actual picture - this way, it represents predators’
selfishness and ignorance.

Another tool is value - the darkest parts of the picture are the background, the hole
inside the chicken and the shadow from the chicken’s corpse falling on a human body, creating
a visible separation of these two. It emphasizes that despite the position of the chicken’s corpse
above the human body, these bodies in fact have nothing in common - it represents women’s
struggle between social gender related labels and male gaze (and on the picture it is a chicken’s
corpse - flaked and vulgar) and their individual perception of gender (presented by the body
beneath - half-lost in the dark and hidden beneath the chicken’s corpse - male gaze).
Another point about the use of value - the lightest part of the image is white underwear -
white is widely considered the color of innocence. The combination of this symbol of innocence
and vulgar opened chicken corpse shows the hypocrisy of men’s expectations towards women:
as they want girls to be innocent, but at the same time mainly perceive them in a sexual context.
Another very dark point is the belly button of a human body, which is located on the place where
the chicken corpse’s head could have been. The visuals trick the viewer into seeing this abstract
head as an enormously small part compared to the corpse itself which might refer to the lack of
spirituality and consciousness of prey in the predator's eyes.
In conclusion, to present the issue of predator-prey dynamics and its impact on gender
roles, Duffy focuses on shapeshifting rhymes in a way it affects the pace and the rhythm of the
lines. It controls the created tension, which directly represents the power dynamics between
prey and predator. As for Sarah Lucas, she uses contrast, value and composition in order to
make the viewer focus on certain objects more, than on the others, which brings up the issue of
sexualization and objectification of women, which is a direct link to the predator-prey dynamics,
as predators don't apply personification tp their prey.