Analyzing Duffy's Queen Kong

In “Queen Kong” by Carol Ann Duffy, the role of King Kong is replaced by a woman narrator, who falls for one of the men that is exploring her native habitat. The poem is heavily sexualized as she comes to realize very quickly on that “it was absolutely love at first sight” (Duffy). She goes on to praise her lover, claiming that not only was he gorgeous but that she “swore in [her] huge heart to follow him then to the ends of the Earth” (Duffy). Queen Kong becomes obsessed with the thought of the man, “[drinking] handfuls of river right by the spot where he’d bathed” when he is no longer on the island (Duffy). The narrator of the poem is bent on being with her lover, so she decides to go searching for him when he leaves her, and winds up in New York City. At the very end of the poem, the lover dies, and Queen Kong wears him around her as a necklace, claiming that “in his silent Death, against [her] massive breathing lungs, he hears [her] roar” (Duffy). Queen Kong acts more drastically, yet eerily similar to the women in Jane Austen’s Emma. Similar to the ladies of the novel, the Queen is distraught at the idea of being without a man in her life, and when he leaves she “thumped at [her] breast, distraught I lasted a month. I slept for a week, then woke to binge for a fortnight” (Duffy). Queen Kong cannot picture her life without a man, who she sees as ever powerful and superior. The women in Emma act in a similar, yet more civilized way about the matter. They crave the stability of a man in their lives, and they do not seem to dream or desire of anything more than being settled down into a marriage and starting a family. This complete lack of thought about an independent lifestyle is similar to the way Queen Kong sees living without her lover, stating that “[she] had been so lonely” and that “no man has been loved more” regarding her affection and devotion to him (Duffy).