My Last Duchess
(Comparative essay between Robert Browning "My Last Duchess" and Porphyria's Lover". Browning's "My Last Duchess" and "Porphyria's Lover" have been very popular throughout the years because their dramatic monologue styles require interaction between the reader and the character. The audience's direct involvement in uncovering the speaker's character represent an evocative feature of these two well-known monologues. A closer look at the poems reveals their striking similarities of total love, intense jealousy, social pride, and madness. These shared features are enhanced by sophisticated poetic techniques, all contributing to the similar possessive love commonly found in both poems. The speaker in "My Last Duchess" is a haughty Duke who wants to control and possess everything, even his wife. The first indication of this desire is in the title and the first line, with the possessive pronoun "My Last Duchess." Furthermore, the Duchess is not referred to by name throughout the poem; this belittles her individuality. Thus the audience is compelled to adopt the notion that the Duke is only concerned with women that can be his possessions. This is clearly supported by the fact that he killed his
The women simply can balance their love life and social life. first wife ¾ "I gave commands; then all smiles stopped together" ¾ only because he had no complete power over her. They suggest infidelity in their women when there is none. The possessive desire in both speakers has hindered their full enjoyment of love because love can never be truly consummated when one partner fails to cooperate and relish the pleasure, especially when the person is dead. The poem reaches its climax as he uses her "long yellow" hair to strangle her, a contrast to when her hair "spread o'er all" as a symbol of her control. One source of the strong possessive love comes from the madness of both men. Due to their wrongful notion of love, the two men fail to recognize that all along they have their women's total love. To the audience the Duchess blushes to show her pleasure at the compliment, but the Duke sees it as flirtation. It also serves to justify the murder of his wife. He feels that she should know that was wrong. He resents her upper class status and feels that she dominated him most of the time such as she "put my arm about her waist.
Common topics in this essay:
Porphyria's Lover,
Duke Porphyria's,
Duke Porphyria,
Fra Pandolph,
Metaphorically Duke,
Furthermore Duchess,
porphyria's lover,
possessive love,
Love Comparative,
upper class,
duchess porphyria's lover,
yellow hair,
value gift,
total love,
social life,
similar possessive,
duke concerned,
Duchess Porphyria's,
spread o'er,
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