Porphyria's Lover And My Last Duchess Critical Analysis

none puts by / The curtain I have drawn for you, but I)' He acts like

Throughout history, gender roles have been an important barrier in society. Women are forced to satisfy expectations established by men and society. “My Last Duchess,” by Robert Browning, focuses on the powerful Duke establishing certain expectations of the Duchess, and attempting to control her. Hamlet, by William Shakespeare, concentrates on Laertes establishing certain expectations of Ophelia, and seeking to control her. A Room of One’s Own, by Virginia Woolf, centers on societal expectations of Judith, and her father trying to control her. In all three texts, men have the ability to control women and have the freedom to do as they please. Women must conform to the expectations of faithfulness, attentiveness, and chastity.

Robert Browning’s “Porphyria’s Lover” is a perfect representation of the status of women during the Victorian Era; women were treated as objects not people. They were property of men, not individuals. In this poem, the speaker, Porphyria’s lover, murders Porphyria and does not only think it was okay to do so, but he also thinks what he has done is noble. In the lines shown above, the speaker begins to realize that Porphyria loves him. Not only does she love him, but she “worships” him. This further pushes the idea that, because he is a man and she a women, he is so superior to her that he is a god. It is not actually her love that he wants, it is the power that he gets from earning her love and making her his subject. His heart does not swell because of the joy in discovering that she loves him; it swells because of this sense of pride he now feels. In the next line, he debates what to do to preserve her “love” forever. In line 36, the speaker comments on how, in that moment, Porphyria was pure and innocent, as Victorian women should be, and suddenly thinks of how to keep her that way. The speaker wants to hold on to the image of her like this forever; so he decides to kill her. The narrator then strangles Porphyria. When describing the act of strangling her, the narrator describes her throat as “little.” Here he is once again showing his dominance over her. However, the most important thing is that he uses her hair, of all things, to strangle her. At the time, hair was a

What is power? Power itself is the ability or capacity to direct or influence the behavior of other or the course of events. It can have many forms such as the power of love, jealousy, political and so on. This has been illustrated in the poem ‘Porphyria’s Lover’ and the play ‘Othello’.

Comparing and Contrasting the Theme of power and control between Porphyrias Lover, La Belle Dame Sans Merci and My Last Duchess

This essay will look at ways William Shakespeare (1564-1616, English actor and playwright) and Robert Browning (1812-1889, English poet and playwright) consider love, murder and jealousy in the play Macbeth and the poems, My Last Duchess and The Laboratory. When comparing these themes it is of interest to consider their historical context and setting. Macbeth was first performed in 1611 and is considered to be one of Shakespeare’s darkest and powerful tragedies. Browning’s poem The Laboratory was also based in the seventeenth century and My Last Duchess in the sixteenth century.

In all four texts, the disruption of relationships and villainy can be seen to be caused by characters struggling with personal insecurities, evoking almost a sense of inner conflict. Browning explores the power struggle between men and women while Shakespeare questions the way in which society imposes gender and racial identity. Both Browning and Duffy consider the ways in which the controlling aspects of a relationship can almost cause “destructive love,” extreme sexual jealousy and simple villainy even Iago states, “He hath done my office” suggesting that, “the green eyed monster” may have struck another victim and created a most evil man.

Male/female relationships are portrayed differently in the poems ‘Porphyria’s Lover’, ‘Havisham’, ‘Cousin Kate’ and the play ‘Macbeth’. They all surround the themes of love, hate, jealousy, betrayal, guilt and obsession. However, the love versus hate theme is most dominant because all of the poems and the play have a melancholy mood, showing how the key characters have been hurt by love through their relationships and how afterwards, the way they feel has also been affected.

In Robert Browning's dramatic monologue, "Porphyria's Lover," the love-stricken frustrations of a nameless speaker end in a passionate, annihilating response to society's scrutiny towards human sensuality. Cleverly juxtaposing Porphyria's innocent femininity and her sexual transgression, Browning succeeds in displaying society's contradictory embrace of morality next to its rejection of sensual pleasure. In an ironically tranquil domestic setting, warm comfort and affection come to reveal burning emotional perversions within confining social structures. The speaker's violent display of passion ends not with external condemnation, but with the matter-of-fact sense of

In Robert Browning’s poem Porphyria’s lover, the narrator killed his lover to remain in his love forever. There are two main characters in this poem: the female character, Porphyria, and her lover. Her lover is low class while Porphyria comes from a decent family. Because of this difference of social class, Porphyria could not give up her, everything for her love; however, she came to see her lover one night and confessed her love to him.

“In order to gain his power back, he feels he must kill this seductress. In order to gain control over Porphyria, the speaker must take advantage of her at her weakest moment” (Marcus). During the Victorian era, the Patriarchy still lead a majority of the moral laws for individuals to follow. The rules, so to speak, are simply that the women are placed in a lower class than men and are to remain there and accept their place. Robert Browning is the author of two poems that are highly controversial to the modern reader for the sheer fact that the works of literature emphasis men overpowering women. While there are many types of ways for men to ruin female lives, and the ways keep expanding by the day, the poems My Last Duchess and Porphyria’s

The two Browning poems, ‘Porphyria’s Lover’ and ‘My Last Duchess’ were written to convey to the reader how women were treated in that era; as possession, as assets. Both of these poems can be read from different points of view and they also both are what is

Both of these works contain the unique ability, as portrayed by Browning, to create a deep fictional psyche that displays the strange relationship between man and woman. This relationship is displayed as one full of pain, jealousy, rejection and happiness, the majority of these emotion are contained in love and marriage. From this the reader can infer the nature of love being the conquering of class distinction and marriage involves sexist male inhibitions. Insecurities are seen in both poems and are evident in the perspective voices of the male protagonists, who are seen as incapable to handle their aggressive and possessive natures when it comes to love and marriage. Browning seems to be demonstrating the side of relationships avoided previously by Romantics and in doing so shows the negative implication on seemingly unruly

Robert Browning’s poetry contains many different themes, but they all have one thing in common, social class. Social class defines the way women are treated in his poems. The women who have a lower social status are treated with respect and love, they are treated as an equal to the man. Women with a higher social status tend to be treated worse than those with lower statuses; they are treated as if they are an object to possess and control. Social status determines the outcome of the women in the poems and the way they are treated. In Robert Browning 's poetry, the role of women is dependent on her social status, as shown in "Love Among the Ruins, "Meeting at Night," "Porphyria 's Lover," and "My Last Duchess."

A Comparison of the Dramatic Monologues of Porphyria's Lover and My Last Duchess by Robert Browning