Queen Kong: Study Questions Stanzas 1 and 2 1. What is implied by the phrase ‘my little man’ in line 2? 2. What is humorous about the way Duffy appeals to the reader’s imagination in stanza 1? 3. ‘The village’ is Greenwich Village in New York. Why does Duffy use this location? 4. What can be inferred by the phrase ‘As you see…’ in stanza 2? 5. What kind of film is the man in the poem making? How does this compare with the director in the film version? Why has Duffy changed this detail? 6. Explain the phrase ‘held his wriggling, shouting life…’ in line 13. Stanzas 3 - 5 7. What does the gorilla gain by being able to communicate with the audience. 8. The final line in stanza 4 recalls another famous actress: Mae West. What is the purpose of this reference? 9. What is the double meaning of ‘I watched him fly?’ 10. How does Duffy make Queen Kong sound lovestruck in these stanzas? Do you like this depiction of her? 11. How would you describe the relationship depicted so far? In what ways is it similar or different to the relationship in the original movie (between Fay Wray and King Kong)? Stanza 6 12. What are the symptoms of loss depicted in the first two lines of stanza 6? 13. What do you think is meant by the parrots who ‘clacked their migraine chant…’? 14. How effective is the assonance of the ‘swinging monkeys whinged’? 15. What kind of fever do you think Queen Kong is suffering from? 16. What is the symbolism of ‘… a fat red moon rolled on the jungle roof’? 17. What do all these symptoms lead to? Stanza 7 18. How does the poet make a connection between the island and New York in the first two lines of this stanza? 19. What uses of language or image do you find humorous in this stanza? 20. What is going on behind a thousand windows of the city? Stanzas 8 and 9 21. When Queen Kong finds her man, he has a photograph of her over his bed. How does this photograph represent a lack of understanding between the two? 22. How effective do you consider the simile in line 1 of stanza 9? 23. How do the events of stanza 9 mirror the events towards the end of the film? 24. What is so incongruous about the idea of Queen Kong shopping at Bloomingdales? Why does Duffy put this image into our minds? 25. What is the tone and mood of the final three lines of stanza 9? Stanzas 10 and 11 26. What clues are there as to the kind of life the director and the gorilla lived together? 27. What quotation suggests the man was fond of the gorilla? 28. Find a quotation that suggests the man was sad to have to live without the gorilla. 29. In what ways does Queen Kong behave more like an animal in this section of the poem? 30. Why does Duffy have the Gorilla use the man as an ‘ornament’ in this section?
