Critical Sketch Of My Last Duchess

Both ‘London’ and ‘My Last Duchess’ explore the ideas of power through social structures, hierarchy and synecdoche.

Margaret Atwood’s short story My Last Duchess aptly employs ideas from Robert Brownings poem My Last Duchess to highlight themes of importance in communication, The relationship between judgement and inadequacy. The author narrates a story of the trials of being a high school student from the point of view of a young woman who not only has to cope with the stress of an upcoming examination and the pressure her teacher puts on her to excel, but also the added trepidation of what the future holds for her relationship. Many aspects of her relationship with her boyfriend, Billy, and her teacher, Miss Bessie, parallel to the relationship illustrated by the Duke about his relationship with the Duchess in Robert Brownings poem. Similarly, many of the themes found in Robert Brownings poems also apply to Margaret Atwood’s work.

In the story “My last Duchess,” the Duke is speaking to the envoy of another nobleman of his second bride to be. The Duke describes the circumstances of his last duchess in which it was painted and boasted how Fra Pandolf the painter made her “look as if she was alive”. The Duke continues speaking about the unfortunate fate of his former wife. It is evident that a crime has been committed; He was jealous and annoyed of his easily impressed wife so he murdered her. His tone and demeanor is one of extreme arrogance and it is clear he is a dangerous man who poses a threat to any and all women he claims to love.

The Victorian Era is a remarkable time in history with the blooming industries, growing population, and a major turnaround in the fashion world. This era was named after Queen Victoria who ruled United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from June 1837 until she passed away 64 years later in January 1901.When Victoria received the crown, popular respect was strikingly low. The lack of respect for the position she had just come into did not diminish her confidence. Instead she won the hearts of Britain with her modesty, grace, straightforwardness, and her want to be informed on the political matters at hand even though she had no input. She changed Britain into a flourishing country. She also impacted how women interacted

the personality of his duchess, he is shown to be a heartless, arrogant man. His complete

After William IV died, his niece, Victoria, became the Queen of England, starting the victorian era. In Victoria’s reign, the British Empire came to cover over ¼ of the world. The Industrial revolution is created during her reign, producing more products available to the common people of England. On the down side, people working in the mill had a hard life.

1.) England's Victorian era occurred during 1837 through 1901.” the Victorian age was characterized by rapid change and developments in nearly every area, from advances in medical, scientific and technological knowledge to changes in population growth and location. over time, this rapid transformation deeply affected the country’s mood, an age that began with confidence and optimism. the Victorian era was in age of paradox and power. social class was most important during that time.there was the working class with men and women performing labor. the middle class where men worked to clean, and the upper class where money and land was inherited.”

The Victorian Era was an era where the British history was under Queen Victoria’s reign for sixty-four years. The people whom were under Queen Victoria’s ruling were called the Victorians. The Queen Victoria was a huge influence on the way the Victorians’ sense was on the morality and immortality of their lives. Since era is known as the era of peace, prosperity, and appreciation for what was given to them but it included self-confidence very much in everything occurred in this era.

Poetry was used in this era as a voice for criticism, comedy, and love. Poets used their gift to draw attention to various issues and challenge the barriers that were set before them. Elizabeth Barrett Browning, a significant poet of the English Victorian Period, was greatly influenced as a writer by her family background, loving marriage, and political and social views.

Love is the most dominant theme in Shakespeare’s ‘Romeo and Juliet’. It is presented as infatuation which is proven to be a force so strong that it literally consumes the two lovers. Although it is only alluded in Browning’s dramatic monologues The Laboratory, the speaker arguably loves her husband as she seeks to rid herself of his lover thereby reclaiming him as her own. Narcissism is seen in both Porphyria’s Lover and My Last Duchess as both characters empower themselves by making them the central focus of the monologue. The Duke is the least emotional of all the characters depicted, yet his actions show a determination and strength of purpose which is evident in the poems.

Explore the ways in which Browning portrays male characters to powerful effect in ‘My Last Duchess’ and ‘Porphyria’s Lover’? Throughout ‘My Last Duchess’ Browning illustrates the Duke's obsession with controlling the people around him; both past and present. One way the Duke exerts his dominance is by not allowing the emissary to talk.

The Victorian era was characterized by a patriarchal society that imposed strict ways of life and moral codes on its women. Because women were considered to have belonged primarily in the domestic realm, the traditional and ideal Victorian woman was the passive, pure, and virtuous “angel in the house.” Women were expected to maintain their virginity until marriage, and expressions of female sexuality or promiscuity were of moral outrage and came with serious consequences. Accordingly, Robert Browning uses this idea of female sexuality and its ramifications in several of his dramatic monologues. Close readings of Browning’s poems “Porphyria’s Lover” and “My Last Duchess” demonstrate how Victorian women are empowered by expressions of their

“My Last Duchess”, by Robert Browning, is narrated through dramatic monologue from the perspective of the nonchalant Duke. Through his narration, the reader develops a wanton view of the Duchess, and a sense of superiority that the Duke bestows upon himself. The Duke, consumed by his own superior ego, illustrates the statue of Neptune and the seahorse, and this becomes the most memorable part of the poem. Within the final lines of “My Last Duchess”, the Duke makes note of his statue of Neptune taming a wild seahorse, and how it is cast in bronze.

The opening of the poem anticipates the ending of the listener finding out about the murder, with hints of paranoia to lead up to it throughout the poem. The account of what the Duke imagines Fra Pandolf saying to his

The Duke, the speaker in his poem, is portrayed as a jealous, manipulative and controlling husband. He unveils the portrait of his late wife and speaks about how she was extraordinary which caused his jealousy, and later on, led to his insanity. Nonetheless, his former duchess is consistently described as someone who is full of love beauty, innocence, grace and love. They developed a diminutive bond which was promptly failed by the trials caused by their differences. This poem is one of Browning’s masterpieces as he immensely provides such striking word and sentence arrangements to emphasize the poem’s narrative – it gives readers intensified feelings and heightened