through Browning's use of his
             references to the things that brought a smile to the dead Duchess' lips.
             She took great pleasure and smiled heartily at the "dropping of daylight in
             the West", "the bough of cherries", and her "white mule" (Browning 1842, 26-
             28). We see that the Duke is materialistic and cannot appreciate his
             wife's pleasure in such things as a sunset or cherry bough when he
             proclaims in reference to such natural phenomena, "â€as if she ranked My
             gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name With anybody's gift" (Browning
             1842, 32-34). Thus through word choice and speech, the poet shows the
             irony between the Duke's impression of himself and the reade
             ...