ABSTRACT
Outsideness in Carol Ann Duffy's poetry extends far beyond the conventional notion of the outsider as a person set against a norm. Outsideness is the norm. It is an aesthetic principle in her representation of subjectivity, especially in the dramatic monologue, and radically influences her dealings with language, explicit and implicit. It is most overt in her representation of literal foreignness. Outsideness is also what gives many of Duffy's celebrated dramatic monologues their distinctive character. They read as if they are the result of the poet trying to follow her own instruction: 'Imagine that'. The poem that deploys outsideness with the greatest virtuosity and cunning is 'Psychopath'. Duffy creates a more ambiguous image of outsideness and the split subject in her celebrated monologue, 'The Dummy', in which the dummy speaks to the ventriloquist. As in a number of Duffy's poems, the 'monologue' can be read as if it were one side of a dialogue.
