The Full Text of “Mrs Sisyphus”
The Full Text of “Mrs Sisyphus”
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“Mrs Sisyphus” Introduction
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Carol Ann Duffy's "Mrs Sisyphus" presents the mythical Sisyphus, a Greek king whose punishment for trying to trick the gods was to roll a boulder up a hill for eternity, as a modern-day workaholic: he's so invested in succeeding that he can't be bothered to spend time with his lonely wife, who's fed up with her husband's irrational devotion to an impossible task. The poem pokes fun at contemporary corporate culture, suggesting that the obsession with work robs people of the ability to actually enjoy their lives. In highlighting Sisyphus's neglect of his wife, the poem also implies that women have often had to pay the price for men's vanity and pride. "Mrs Sisyphus" was published in Duffy's 1999 collection The World's Wife, alongside other poems written from the perspective of female counterparts of famous men from history and myth.
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“Mrs Sisyphus” Summary
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The poem's speaker, the wife of Sisyphus, points out her husband, saying that he's the one over there rolling that rock uphill like a chump. While she's referring to it as a rock, it's actually closer to the size of a church. It didn't bother her that much when Sisyphus started with this stone-rolling business. Now, however, it infuriates her. Just look at him, she says—he's a total fool. She's so angry she could attack him with a dagger.
Sisyphus always tells his wife just to remember all the benefits of his work. But what good is a benefit, she yells back, when he doesn't even have the time for a glass of wine or to simply go for a stroll outside? He's a nerd, Mrs. Sisyphus says. People come from all over to stare at him. They think what he's doing is simply eccentric, that he does this to amuse himself. It's really just utter foolishness, in his wife's opinion. He'd be better off howling at the moon, given that the stupid rock just rolls right back down again once he's reached the top of the hill. Yet he insists that he can't shun his duties. Oh, he's perceptive as a bird of prey, his wife says sarcastically—tough as a shark. He can't shun his duties!
And that, Mrs. Sisyphus says, leaves her lying by herself at night, feeling the way Noah's wife must have felt while he was off building the ark; feeling the way Johann Sebastian Bach's wife must have felt. Her voice has been diminished into a screech, she says, and her smile is now more like a contorted sneer. Meanwhile, he's up there on that hill as darkness falls, still devoting everything he has to his work.
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“Mrs Sisyphus” Themes
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Absurd Devotion to Work
“Mrs Sisyphus” responds to the myth of Sisyphus, an ancient king whose punishment for cheating death was to eternally roll a boulder up a hill only for it to roll back down again as soon as he reached the top. Duffy's poem depicts Sisyphus as a workaholic whose exasperated wife, the poem's speaker, is fed up with the way he prioritizes his pointless job over everything else—including their marriage. In this way, the poem illustrates how relentless devotion to work is at once absurd, foolish, and selfish, capable of eroding relationships and the ability to enjoy the "perks" of one's labor.
The version of Sisyphus in this poem is more or less married to his work. His wife says that the “stone” he’s “pushing […] up the hill” is “the size of a kirk.” A “kirk” is a church, so perhaps this implies that Sisyphus practically worships the mundane task he’s been assigned.
Sisyphus also repeatedly says that he “Mustn't shirk” (or evade) his task, apparently possessed by a sense of unshakeable responsibility. Even that late in the day, in “the deepening murk of the hill, / he is giving one hundred percent and more to his work.” In other words, he is so devoted to work that he has nothing left to “give” to anything else—including her!
The speaker clearly feels that Sisyphus’s obsession with work isn’t worth it. Not only is the work itself pointless, but his ambition is ruining their relationship. Her husband’s dedication becomes utterly ridiculous when readers remember that he’s just pushing a rock up a hill. The speaker says he “might as well bark at the moon,” implying that his refusal to admit defeat isn’t admirable but delusional, tied to his inability to accept failure or recognize what’s actually important in life.
Building on this idea, she asks what the point of work “perk[s]” (or benefits) are “when you haven’t the time to pop open a cork / or go for so much as a walk in the park?” It seems that work is keeping Sisyphus so busy that he can’t even enjoy a glass of wine or a simple outing with his wife. She also describes herself as lying “alone in the dark,” reflecting her loneliness as her husband is off at his job.
She then compares herself to other women whose lives have disappeared behind the ambition of their famous husbands. She says she “feel[s] like Noah’s wife did / when he hammered away at the Ark,” and “like Frau, Johann Sebastian Bach.” This work obsession, the poem suggests, is part of a broader, masculine careerism—something that, in this speaker's mind, is at once selfish and ridiculous.
Where this theme appears in the poem:- Lines 1-32
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Masculine Pride and Women's Lack of Choices
Mrs. Sisyphus understands that her husband's delusional pride is to blame for her own unhappiness. His refusal to accept the reality of his situation—that he will never succeed in pushing the rock to the top of the hill—has made him a laughing stock and left his wife "alone in the dark" each night through no fault of her own. It's his vanity that has "reduced" her voice "to a squawk," and she resents her inability to separate herself from her husband's misdeeds. In likening her dismal situation to that of the wives of other famous men, Mrs. Sisyphus implies that this intense need to succeed is a traditionally masculine trait—one for which women, historically been confined to the home, have often paid the price.
The speaker resents Sisyphus not just for making a joke of himself, but also for dragging her into his mess. Her entire life, essentially, has been unfairly defined by her husband's choices. (In some versions of the original myth, Sisyphus in fact tricks his wife into playing a role in the scheme that earns him his rock-pushing punishment.)
Yet her unhappiness can't make Sisyphus accept reality. He still thinks himself "keen as a hawk" and "lean as a shark," like an apex predator at the top of his game. He still believes that he might succeed and thus that he "Mustn't shirk" his duty. His wife knows this is a "load of old bollocks," but she doesn't get rewarded for seeing through her husband's delusional vanity. Instead, her "voice [is] reduced to a squawk" and her "smile to a twisted smirk." Sisyphus's obsession with work has not simply robbed his wife of her joy, but turned her into a cliché: the nagging wife. Such stereotypes, the poem implies, are deeply unfair—the fault of selfish, prideful husbands rather than needy, pestering wives.
Yet the speaker can’t get free of Sisyphus’s narrative; her story is bound up with—and overshadowed by—his. It's not just a Sisyphus problem, either. The speaker compares herself to “Noah’s wife” and “Frau, Johann Sebastian Bach,” implying that these women were likewise forced to put up with the relentless ambition of their famous husbands. Note, too, how none of these women get first names in the poem, reflecting the ways in which their lives have been subsumed by their husbands'.
Unlike these women, Mrs. Sisyphus isn’t married to an accomplished man but to a man who thought he could outsmart the gods and failed. Her life will be forever marked by his notoriety; she will have to live with his hubris. The speaker's inability to free herself from the spectacle Sisyphus has made reflects the ways that women’s lives (in classical literature as well as much of history) have all too often been defined by the choices of the men around them—choices that often fail to take them into consideration at all.
Where this theme appears in the poem:- Lines 1-32
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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “Mrs Sisyphus”
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Lines 1-5
That's him pushing ...
... with a dirk.The poem's title lets readers know who the speaker is: the wife of Sisyphus, a king in Greek myth known for his attempts to outsmart the gods and cheat death. When the gods discovered his trickery, Zeus sentenced Sisyphus to an eternity of rolling an enormous boulder up a hill. As soon as Sisyphus neared the top, the boulder would roll back down, thus ensuring he could never actually complete his task. (This is why people refer to difficult yet futile tasks as "Sisyphean"!)
This poem is told from the perspective of Mrs. Sisyphus, however (whose name in myth was Merope). And even as the poem draws on ancient myths, its language is distinctly contemporary and conversational—the first hint that Duffy is reinterpreting the story of Sisyphus and Merope to make a point about modern life and work.
The poem itself opens with Mrs. Sisyphus pointing her husband out to an unseen listener nearby, saying, "That's him pushing the stone up the hill, the jerk." Right away, it's clear that she's far from thrilled with her husband's choices! She then uses a simile to compare the "stone" Sisyphus is pushing to a "kirk," or church. This comparison suggests just how enormous this rock is, and it also implies just how devoted Sisyphus is to pushing that rock up the hill. It's as if he worships his work or treats it as a holy calling.
He's clearly been at it for a while, too: his wife goes on to say that back when Sisyphus first started with this rock-pushing business, his intense commitment "just used to irk," or mildly annoy, her; now it "incenses," or enrages, her. Perhaps that's because she understands that he's never going to succeed—that the stone he pushes will just keep rolling on down the hill. Having lost patience with his commitment to a pointless task, she calls Sisyphus a "berk" (or a dunce) and adds that she could "do something vicious to him with a dirk" (a dagger). In other words, she's so angry she'd like to attack him with a knife.
This is a violent image, to be sure, but the poem's language keeps things feeling light-hearted. The poem is written in free verse, so it doesn't follow a regular meter or a rhyme scheme. That said, it's filled with playful rhymes: in the first stanza, for example, every line ends in a full rhyme ("jerk," "kirk," "irk," "berk," "dirk"). The wealth of sharp, biting /k/ sounds evokes Mrs. Sisyphus's bitter disgust with her husband. The heavy use of single rhyme sound also echoes the repetitive nature of Sisyphus's task. Finally, these are all rather funny sounding, unusual words, and their presence adds to the poem's playful feel.
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Lines 6-9
Think of the ...
... in the park? -
Lines 10-14
He's a dork. ...
... nearer the mark. -
Lines 15-19
He might as ...
... the way down. -
Lines 20-24
And what does ...
... Mustn't shirk! -
Lines 25-28
But I lie ...
... Johann Sebastian Bach. -
Lines 29-32
My voice reduced ...
... to his work.
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“Mrs Sisyphus” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language
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Allusion
The poem is a response to the Greek myth of Sisyphus, a king of Corinth known for clever attempts to trick the gods and cheat death. As punishment for his hubris, Zeus condemned Sisyphus to push a boulder up a hill for eternity. As soon as the boulder neared the top of the hill, however, it would roll away again, ensuring that Sisyphus's task was never complete. (The modern adjective "Sisyphean" comes from this myth and refers to a difficult yet futile task.)
The poem picks up after the myth typically ends, with Sisyphus having been "pushing the stone up the hill" for some time. Duffy makes some specific allusions to the myth throughout the poem. In lines 17-19, for example, Mrs. Sisyphus says, "that feckin' stone's no sooner up / than it's rolling back / all the way down."
The poem also briefly alludes to the wives of two other famous men: Noah and Johann Sebastian Bach. In the Bible, God tasks Noah with building a giant ark to save humanity and the animals of earth before God unleashes a vengeful flood upon the world. Johann Sebastian Bach, meanwhile, is an extremely famous 18th-century German composer. The poem references these famous men to expand its point: the poem isn't just about Mrs. Sisyphus, but about the way that women's lives throughout history have so often been overshadowed by their husbands' deeds.
Where allusion appears in the poem:- Line 1: “That's him pushing the stone up the hill, the jerk.”
- Lines 17-19: “that feckin' stone's no sooner up / than it's rolling back / all the way down.”
- Lines 25-28: “But I lie alone in the dark, / feeling like Noah's wife did / when he hammered away at the Ark; / like Frau Johann Sebastian Bach.”
- Lines 31-32: “while, up on the deepening murk of the hill, / he is giving one hundred percent and more to his work.”
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Alliteration
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Consonance
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Diacope
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Onomatopoeia
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Simile
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Rhetorical Question
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Colloquialism
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"Mrs Sisyphus" 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.
- Kirk
- Irk
- Incenses
- Berk
- Dirk
- Perk
- Pop open a cork
- Gawk
- Lark
- A load of old bollocks
- Nearer the mark
- Feckin'
- Shirk
- Keen
- Noah's wife
- Ark
- Frau Johann Sebastian Bach
- Murk
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(Location in poem: Line 2: “I call it a stone—it's nearer the size of a kirk.”)
A church (often used to refer specifically to the Church of Scotland).
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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “Mrs Sisyphus”
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Form
"Mrs Sisyphus" consists of 32 lines of free verse, broken into three stanzas of varying lengths. The poem doesn't follow any traditional form (such as a sonnet or villanelle). Instead, it feels loose and conversational. Visually, the lines get shorter and shorter throughout the second stanza before stretching out at the start of the third. This subtly mirrors the repetitive nature of Sisyphus's task: the poem's movement from long lines to short lines and back to long lines evokes the way he pushes his stone up the hill only for it to roll back down.
The poem is also a dramatic monologue, the speaker (the titular Mrs. Sisyphus) seeming to point her husband out to some unnamed listener nearby ("That's him," she says at the poem's start). This adds to the poem's intimacy, as it sounds like Mrs. Sisyphus is speaking directly to the reader.
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Meter
This is a free verse poem and as such it doesn't use a regular meter. Its language feels distinctly contemporary, reflecting the fact that Duffy is using an ancient myth to comment on modern work and relationships. The lack of meter also keeps things sounding immediate and conversational, as though the speaker is relaying her frustration to readers in real-time.
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Rhyme Scheme
"Mrs Sisyphus" doesn't have a steady rhyme scheme. That said, the poem is overflowing with end rhymes and even some internal rhymes—they just don't follow a specific, predictable pattern. The lack of rhyme scheme, like the lack of meter, keeps the poem sounding surprising and fresh throughout.
The intense use of rhyme itself, meanwhile, adds insistent, inescapable music to the poem that evokes both Mrs. Sisyphus's frustration and her husband's steadfast devotion to his work.
In the first stanza, for example, every line ends in a perfect "erk" sound: "jerk," "kirk," "irk," "berk," "dirk." As a result, the lines feel intensely repetitive. The sharpness of all those /k/ sounds evokes the speaker's growing outrage; it almost sounds as if she is spitting out the poem's words, disgusted by both Sisyphus and the situation he's put her in.
The speaker uses /k/ and /rk/ sounds throughout the next stanzas as well. This consonance creates both full and slant rhymes between (and sometimes within) lines, as with "cork," "park" and "dork" in lines 8-10:
when you haven't the time to pop open a cork
or go for so much as a walk in the park?
He's a dork.The relentlessness of these sounds in the poem evokes Sisyphu's relentless devotion to his relentless task, as well as his wife's bitterness.
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“Mrs Sisyphus” Speaker
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The poem's speaker is the wife of Sisyphus, a mythical Greek king. Sisyphus thought he could outsmart the gods and cheat death. As punishment for his trickery, Zeus, the king of the gods, sentenced Sisyphus to push a boulder up a hill only for it to immediately roll back down, over and over again.
Sisyphus's wife's name in myth was Merope. She was one of the Pleiades, a group of seven sisters whom Zeus transformed into stars (this is where the real Pleiades cluster gets its name!). According to some myths, her star is faintest in the group because Merope hid her face in shame for marrying a mortal.
Merope is never actually named in the poem, however, which is part of the point: her story has been overshadowed by that of her more famous husband. But here, she gets a chance to speak for herself about how his choices have affected her life.
Merope presents Sisyphus as a fool who takes "his work" too seriously. She calls his job a "load of old bollocks" (or complete nonsense), and she calls him a "dork" for "giving one hundred percent and more" to his tedious, pointless task. She clearly resents the way he prioritizes his job over their relationship, lamenting how she "lie[s] alone in the dark," lonely and frustrated, while he's out all night pushing his boulder up the hill.
Merope, here, feels as though she's had to pay a great price for her husband's pride. She says that her "smile" has been turned into "a twisted smirk" and that her "voice" has been "reduced to a squawk," suggesting that Sisyphus is to blame for her bitter unhappiness.
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“Mrs Sisyphus” Setting
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Mrs. Sisyphus opens the poem by pointing out her husband to an unnamed listener: "That's him pushing the stone up the hill," she says, which means the poem takes place close enough to this hill to see Sisyphus in action.
Beyond that, the setting is vague. The poem doesn't reveal where this "hill" is or what it looks like. In the original myth, Sisyphus's punishment took place in the underworld, but the poem makes no reference to this. Instead, the use of British and Scottish slang ("berk," "bollocks," etc.) suggests that Duffy has planted this tale in the contemporary UK. Mrs. Sisyphus speaks as though her husband were a modern office worker: he boasts about the "perks" of the job and is too busy to "pop open a cork" (i.e., open a bottle of wine) "or go for so much as a walk in the park." All this casual, colloquial language implies that the poem is using an ancient myth to comment on the nature of work and relationships in the present.
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Literary and Historical Context of “Mrs Sisyphus”
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Literary Context
Carol Ann Duffy is among the most acclaimed and high-profile poets in the contemporary UK. Born in Scotland in 1955, she became the UK's first female poet laureate in 2009 and served in the position for the next 10 years.
“Mrs Sisyphus” was published in Duffy's fifth poetry collection, The World’s Wife (1999). In this collection, Duffy writes from the viewpoints of the wives, sisters, and female contemporaries of famous and infamous men. Some of her characters include Mrs. Pilate, Queen Kong, Circe, Frau Freud, Mrs. Aesop, and Pygmalion’s Bride. In witty, conversational language, The World’s Wife examines the ways that women's stories have been ignored or overlooked by history and literature.
This particular poem draws from the Greek myth of Sisyphus, a king famous for trying to outsmart the gods and cheat death. Zeus punished Sisyphus for his trickery by forcing him to roll a boulder up a hill for all of eternity. Merope, the figure who narrates this poem, is much less well-known. She was one of the Pleiades, a group of seven sisters whom Zeus turned into stars. According to some versions of the myth, Merope was the faintest of these stars because she hid her face in shame after marrying the mortal Sisyphus. (Probably not coincidentally, Merope is also the name of the witch in the Harry Potter series who falls in love with the mortal Tom Riddle!)
"Mrs Sisyphus" is written as a dramatic monologue, a form Duffy often uses in her poetry. Dramatic monologues are told from the perspective of someone who is clearly not the poet (in this case, Merope), and they are often addressed to an audience other than the reader. Other famous dramatic monologues include Duffy's "Circe" and "My Last Duchess" by Robert Browning.
Duffy was also deeply influenced by Sylvia Plath, whose Collected Works she received for her 25th birthday. She would go on to edit an edition of Plath’s poems and to write a piece for The Guardian about how Plath's work, with its revolutionary interest in women's internal lives, blazed a trail Duffy would follow in her own poetry.
Historical Context
Duffy was born in Scotland in 1955 and came of age during second-wave feminism. While early feminism had been focused primarily on securing women's right to vote, second-wave feminism addressed a wider range of issues including reproductive rights, domestic violence, workplace equality, and more. Second-wave feminism was responding to many of the restrictive gender norms of the mid-20th century, including the idea that women's purpose in life was to become demure mothers and wives. By the 1990s, when this poem was written, third-wave feminists began more actively seeking to upend patriarchal norms altogether—and with them, the treatment of the straight, white, male perspective as the model for all human experience.
It's also worth considering the poem within the context of Duffy's own relationship with poet Adrian Henri. She and Henri began a relationship when Henri was 39 and Duffy was 16; they lived together for 10 years, with Henri acting not only as Duffy's romantic partner but also as her mentor. Henri was persistently unfaithful, and it is likely that this formative relationship influenced some of the themes of The World's Wife.
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More “Mrs Sisyphus” Resources
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External Resources
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Listen to a Reading of the Poem — A lively performance of the poem by Elizabeth Whittome for Cambridge University.
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A Look at the Poet's Life — An introduction to the poet's life and work from the Poetry Foundation.
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A History of the Dramatic Monologue — An overview of the dramatic monologue (a form Duffy often turns to in her poetry) and how it has been used over time.
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A Review of The World's Wife — Author Jeanette Winterson reviews Duffy's fifth collection of poetry, in which "Mrs Sisyphus" appeared.
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An Introduction to the Myth of Sisyphus — A breakdown of the mythology surrounding Sisyphus, including how his wife, Merope, played into his scheme to cheat death.
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Who Was Frau Johann Sebastian Bach? — An interesting article about Bach's second wife, Anna Magdalena, who may have written some of his most famous pieces.
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The World's Oldest Story — Check out an article on the Pleides star cluster, and how the myth of "Seven Sisters" might date back 100,000 years.
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LitCharts on Other Poems by Carol Ann Duffy
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