The Full Text of “Mrs Icarus”
The Full Text of “Mrs Icarus”
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“Mrs Icarus” Introduction
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Scottish poet and playwright Carol Ann Duffy first published "Mrs Icarus" in her 1999 collection The World's Wife, a book of dramatic monologues told from the perspective of the wives, girlfriends, and female family members of famous fictional and historical men. This poem alludes to the ancient Greek myth in which a rash young man named Icarus, flying with wax wings, gets too close to the sun and tumbles to an untimely death. This poem introduces a new character to the story: Mrs. Icarus, Icarus's long-suffering wife. Imagining the scene of Icarus's fall from Mrs. Icarus's perspective, this short, quippy poem takes a sly look at male pride—and at how often men ignore female common sense.
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“Mrs Icarus” Summary
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The poem's speaker, the wife of Icarus, remarks that she's neither the first nor the last wife to stand watching while her husband demonstrates that he's a complete and utter fool.
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“Mrs Icarus” Themes
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Foolish Male Pride
"Mrs Icarus" is a humorous dramatic monologue (a poem spoken by a particular character) that riffs on the myth of Icarus. In Greek mythology, Icarus was a young man who, wearing wings made of feathers and wax, flew too close to the sun against his father's warnings. The wax, inevitably, melted, and Icarus plummeted to his death. This poem introduces a new character to the story: Icarus’s exasperated wife. Mrs. Icarus criticizes her husband for his pig-headed pride—his determination to prove how great he is to the world (while in fact proving nothing more than his own stupidity). She sees herself as part of a long line of similar wifely observers. The poem presents foolish male pride—and its consequences—as an eternal problem for long-suffering women.
Mrs. Icarus watches from a world-weary distance while her husband makes his flight: she "stands on a hillock" looking on, unable to stop “the man she married” from doing something that she knows is dangerous, foolish, and doomed to fail. Throughout history, the poem implies, women have often had to watch while their husbands make huge mistakes for the sake of puffing up their egos. Instead of proving his mastery of flight, Icarus only confirms his wife's opinion of him: "he's a total, utter, absolute Grade A pillock" (in other words, a massive fool).
Though the poem has a comical tone, it makes a serious point: men, the poem suggests, often get carried away by their need to prove themselves and ignore the advice of the women in their lives, presuming to know better. Mrs. Icarus observes that she is "not the first or the last" wife to watch her husband let his pride get the better of him. This implies that history is full of similar examples, and that the future will be too. Of course, stupidity and wisdom are not really gendered traits—but the poem makes the point that, in a patriarchal world, egotistical men habitually ignore female wisdom (and end up looking pretty silly as a result).
Where this theme appears in the poem:- Lines 1-5
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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “Mrs Icarus”
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Lines 1-3
I'm not the ...
... man she marriedThis dramatic monologue (a poem told from the perspective of a particular character) retells the ancient Greek myth of Icarus. What sets this version of the Icarus myth apart is its unique perspective:
- In the conventional telling of the myth, Icarus is the central character: a young man who, in spite of his father's warnings, flies too close to the sun using wings made of wax and feathers. This foolish choice leads to his tragic—and literal—downfall.
- This poem, however, shifts the focus to a new character: Icarus's wife, who doesn't exist in the original tale.
The myth of Icarus is usually interpreted as a cautionary tale about the perils of excessive pride. In this short poem, the long-suffering Mrs. Icarus will reframe the story to remark on foolish male pride in particular.
As the poem begins, Mrs. Icarus is "stand[ing] on a hillock," getting ready to watch her husband take off on his doomed flight—and already expecting that it will all go terribly wrong. In the first line, she names herself as one of many generations of wives who have had to stand and watch while their husbands do something silly: "I'm not the first or the last," she remarks, with weary exasperation. Mrs. Icarus's simple, colloquial language makes her sound straight-talking and no-nonsense, in contrast with her husband's delusionally lofty ambitions.
The physical distance between her and Icarus symbolically suggests their conflicting worldviews. There's an emotional, psychological, and literal gap between them. Icarus is up there in the sky, following some misguided fantasy to its tragic end; Mrs. Icarus on the ground, rooted in reality.
In line 3, Mrs. Icarus describes her husband as "the man she married," a turn of phrase that sounds rather distant. Icarus isn't "her husband" here, but some silly "man" she just so happened to marry. Perhaps the phrasing even implies that their relationship has changed over time, almost as if she can hardly believe that Icarus is the same man she married. All in all, these first lines build up a picture of a woman who's seen plenty of foolishness from her husband over the course of a long, long relationship.
This free verse poem (which uses no regular meter) is built from a single sentence stretched over five lines through enjambment:
I'm not the first or the last
to stand on a hillock
watching the man she married [...]Plunging past line breaks, this one sentence takes on a momentum that mirrors Icarus's fall: the words tumble down the page toward a final resolution.
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Lines 4-5
prove to the ...
... Grade A pillock.
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“Mrs Icarus” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language
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Allusion
The poem alludes to the Greek myth of Icarus. It's a playful take on one of the best-known stories in classical mythology:
- Icarus was a young man imprisoned alongside his inventor father Daedalus for helping the hero Theseus to escape the Labyrinth (a maze-like prison). In a bid for freedom, Daedalus built wings for Icarus and himself out of wax and feathers.
- Daedalus warned his son not to fly too high or too low in order to avoid the heat of the sun and the dampness of the sea, as either would spell disaster for the fragile wings.
- Icarus didn't heed the warning and flew too high. The wax holding his wings together melted in the sun, sending him plummeting to his death. In Icarus's case, pride comes before a quite literal fall.
In this poem, the speaker—Icarus's wife, a character Duffy invents for the sake of comedy—doesn't explain anything about the myth. Many readers will already know that Icarus's downfall typically symbolizes the perils of hubris (that is, excessive pride). The poem is about hubris, but with an important twist: Mrs Icarus's scathing put-down of her husband makes this more specifically about the folly of masculine pride, a distinctly male need to show off (even when it's an obviously bad idea). By alluding to and then reworking the myth of Icarus, "Mrs Icarus" captures the exasperation of many wives throughout the ages.
Where allusion appears in the poem:- Lines 1-5
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Colloquialism
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Enjambment
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"Mrs Icarus" Vocabulary
Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.
- Icarus
- Hillock
- Pillock
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(Location in poem: )
Icarus is a figure from Greek mythology. He was the son of Daedalus, imprisoned with his father on suspicion of freeing the hero Theseus from the perilous Labyrinth (a prison in the form of an impenetrable maze). To escape, Daedalus built wings with which to fly away. He warned Icarus not to fly too low (where the ocean might collapse his wings) nor too high (where the sun might melt them). But Icarus enjoyed flying a little too much and soared higher and higher. Inevitably, the sun melted the beeswax holding his wings together, sending Icarus plummeting to his death.
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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “Mrs Icarus”
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Form
Like the rest of the poems in Duffy's The World's Wife, "Mrs Icarus" is a dramatic monologue, a poem spoken in the voice of a particular character, like a speech in a play. The speaker here is the long-suffering Mrs. Icarus, the imagined wife of the mythological character who flew too close to the sun and fell from the sky. Here, her colloquial word choices (particularly when she calls her husband a "pillock," a fool) make her sound more like a modern Brit than an ancient Greek heroine.
"Mrs Icarus" consists of one sentence stretched across five lines through enjambment. It alludes, of course, to the myth of Icarus, but while mythic narratives are usually quite grand and epic, this version is short and almost throwaway. That's no accident: the pithy, dismissive tone of the poem captures Mrs Icarus's exasperation with her foolhardy husband.
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Meter
"Mrs Icarus" uses free verse, meaning it lacks any strict meter. The loose rhythms give it a spontaneous, conversational tone—as if these are Mrs. Icarus's off-the-cuff, in-real-time remarks as she watches her husband plummet to his inevitable (and predictable, and rather embarrassing) doom.
But the poem does use changing line lengths to build up to its final joke. The last line is far longer than the others and works like a comical drumroll leading to the poem's final word: "pillock" (or fool).
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Rhyme Scheme
Over its five short lines, "Mrs Icarus" doesn't quite have time to work up to a full rhyme scheme. Its rhymes run like this:
ABCDB
There's just one prominent (and funny) rhyme in lines 2 and 5, then: the chime between "hillock" and "pillock."
The general lack of rhyme makes the poem sound conversational and unscripted: this is just Mrs. Icarus telling it like it is. But that one clear rhyme rings loud and true, emphasizing the word "pillock" (which was already pretty funny in its own right). The rhyme makes Mrs. Icarus's put-down of her husband feel doubly dismissive, capturing the frustrations of the many wives who've watched their husbands make fools of themselves.
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“Mrs Icarus” Speaker
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The poem's speaker is the titular Mrs. Icarus—the wife of Icarus, a famous figure from Greek mythology. Icarus isn't usually depicted as having a wife; indeed, in the original myth, he's just a headstrong teenager. Duffy thus reimagines the myth by creating the Mrs. Icarus character.
The addition of Mrs. Icarus subtly changes the myth's typical message. Icarus has always been a symbol of hubris, but with his wife looking on, he starts to seem like the avatar of a particularly masculine kind of egotism. The world-weary Mrs. Icarus has clearly lost her patience with her husband, and she delivers a withering final judgement on his foolishness: the man, she concludes with a sigh, is nothing but a "Grade A pillock."
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“Mrs Icarus” Setting
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While readers might imagine the poem is set in the mythological Greece of the Icarus myth, there are clear hints that Mrs. Icarus's problem is a timeless one. Mrs. Icarus herself doesn't speak like an ancient Greek heroine but like a contemporary Brit. It's hard to imagine, say, Penelope calling Odysseus a "pillock," but that's exactly Mrs. Icarus's damning judgment on her foolish husband. By blurring the boundaries between past and present, myth and reality, Duffy suggests that some problems between men and women are as old as time.
The poem also cheekily reimagines the Icarus myth in its point of view. Rather than following Icarus's grand, doomed fall from the sky to the sea, the poem stays on firm ground alongside Mrs. Icarus. Looking on from a convenient "hillock," she, unlike her husband, stays grounded in reality: she knows that Icarus's flight is going to go wrong (no matter how invincible he thinks he is). The setting thus creates a physical divide that mirrors the couple's differing perspectives.
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Literary and Historical Context of “Mrs Icarus”
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Literary Context
Carol Ann Duffy (1955-present) is an award-winning Scottish poet and playwright who served as the United Kingdom's first female Poet Laureate from 2009 to 2019. "Mrs Icarus" was published in Duffy's celebrated 1999 collection The World's Wife, which retells the stories of famous and infamous men from history and folklore from the perspectives of their female counterparts. Through conversational, witty dramatic monologues, The World's Wife highlights the experiences of women who have been otherwise overlooked or misrepresented. The collection features many mythological figures, including Circe, Demeter, Eurydice, Medusa, and Penelope.
In her fondness for dramatic monologues, Duffy follows in the footsteps of writers like Robert Browning and T. S. Eliot. Duffy has also written on the impact of Confessionalist poet Sylvia Plath, whose groundbreaking work inspired her to write about women's interior lives. In turn, Duffy has influenced and supported the careers of writers such as Alice Oswald, Kate Clanchy, and Jeanette Winterson.
In writing on Icarus, Duffy also takes part in a larger tradition: the myth has spawned many artworks and poems over the centuries. Readers interested in artistic responses to the Icarus story might also want to check out Pieter Brueghel the Elder's famous Landscape with the Fall of Icarus and the poems it inspired: William Carlos Williams's "Landscape with the Fall of Icarus" and Auden's "Musée des Beaux Arts."
Historical Context
Carol Ann Duffy grew up under the influence of the second-wave feminist movement of the 1960s and '70s. While first-wave feminism focused primarily on securing women's suffrage, second-wave feminism critiqued patriarchy more broadly and encompassed issues like sexuality, domestic violence, and reproductive rights.
Duffy wrote The World's Wife during the rise of third-wave feminism in the 1990s. Third-wave feminism carried on the struggles of the second wave, but expanded to encompass classism, racism, and LGBTQ rights, too. Third-wave feminism also worked to reclaim terms and structures typically used to disempower women. The World's Wife takes part in this reclamation by retelling traditionally male-centric stories from women's perspectives.
The influence of second- and third-wave feminism can be seen in "Mrs Icarus," with its critique of masculine pride, as well as across Duffy's larger body of work, which often highlights the experiences of women living within male-dominated societies.
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More “Mrs Icarus” Resources
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External Resources
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More on Duffy — Learn more about Carol Ann Duffy's life and work in the Poetry Foundation's short biography.
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The Poem Out Loud — Listen to a reading of the poem by actor Helena Bonham Carter.
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On the Myth of Icarus — Read more about the ill-fated Icarus (and his father Daedalus).
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An Interview with Duffy — Read a newspaper interview in which Carol Ann Duffy discusses The World's Wife shortly after its publication.
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A Review of The World's Wife — Author Jeanette Winterson reviews Duffy's fifth collection of poetry, in which "Mrs Icarus" appeared.
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LitCharts on Other Poems by Carol Ann Duffy
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