Question

Biography of dolphins in poem dolphins by Carol and duffy

Answer 1

Carol Ann Duffy’s poem “The Dolphins” is written from the perspective of dolphins who have been trained to perform for humans in a waterpark and who apparently miss the freedom they once enjoyed in the ocean. The poem thus speaks to any person who has ever felt confined by circumstances, but the poem can also be taken at face value as a reflection on the ways animals are often mistreated, sometimes even with no intent to mistreat them, by humans.

The style of the poem is basically simple and straightforward, although sometimes the phrasing is suggestive rather than explicit, and sometimes the phrasing plays with clichés, as in line 2: “We are in our element but we are not free.” The phrase “in our element” is a well-worn cliché, but Duffy breathes new life into it by playing on the idea of water as one of the natural elements. The dolphins are surrounded by water, but they are also confined within a tank. Yet the freedom of the dolphins is limited not only by the physical tank but by the tricks they have been trained to perform.

Typical of the poem’s combination of simplicity and ambiguity is the following passage:

The other has my shape.  The other's movement

forms my thoughts.  And also mine.  There is a man

and there are hoops.  There is a constant flowing guilt