Porphyria's Lover Essay

According to dictionary.com, feminism is the doctrine advocating social, political, and all other rights of women equal to those of men. Throughout history and even in present time, women have been subject to unequal treatment by their male counterparts. For example, in the biblical story of Adam and Eve, Eve is born from Adam’s rib, showing that Adam is the dominant figure in the narrative. Even today, there exists in certain professions a gender pay gap. Similarly, the way in which women are depicted in Beloved by Toni Morrison and the short story The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Stetson indicates that women are able to thrive independently and take on masculine roles, while men are able to experience feminine attributes.

The loss of a loved one is perhaps the most difficult experience that humans ever come up against. The poem Porphyria’s Lover, written by Robert Browning, adds a sense of irony to this. At the most superficial layer, the speaker’s in both Porphyria’s Lover and Neutral Tones, written by Thomas hardy, both deal with loss. The tones in Neutral Tones seem to be indifferent, or Neutral. Porphyria’s Lover speaker ends up murdering his beloved at the end the poem. While this isn’t the case with the speaker in Neutral Tones, the two speakers are much more similar than we might think. The speaker in Neutral Tones doesn’t outright murder his lover, but there is a considerable amount of disdain and contempt towards his supposed lover. The speaker in Porphyria’s Lover is quite obviously a disturbed man, the sinister nature of the speaker in Neutral Tones, however, is not as clear. Delving further into this idea, I will also discuss other obscure parallels throughout the two poems.

The structure in 'Porphyria's Lover' is a mirrored structure as the first half of the poem (before her death) Porphyria is more dominant while after her death the narrator becomes more dominant reflecting the patriarchal society. This shows the dominance in their relationship, which contradict to the patriarchal society. Porphyria's gestures 'she kneeled', 'withdrew the dripping clock', 'let her damp hair fall' hints that she is flaunting her sexuality which controverts to how women where in the Victorian Times.

This leads us to believe that Porphyria has hurt him during their last meeting and makes us curious to know what Porphyria did to deserve his detestation. Yet still she pursues him, she becomes sensual and embraces him “

Feminism one source defines as "The advocacy of women’s rights on the grounds of political, social, and economic equality to men." It is plausible to attribute this to the unfair pay, job appointments, and simply put discrimination against women in relation to the workplace. Although great strides have been made women are still being paid 90% of what their male counterparts are being paid. This

The narrator of the poem is in love with Porphyria. He soon learns that love taken to the extreme is not much love at all. “I listened with heart fit to break” He was so attached to her that any emotion she shows greatly affects him. “To set its struggling passion free, From pride , and vainer ties dissever.” This is the beginning of his consciousness disconnection her from being a person to her being a construct of his obsession. She became just a figment that he could control. Nevertheless, turning from love into and overwhelming insanity. “And strangled her. No pain felt she; I am quite sure she felt no pain.” He thinks she felt no pain because he does not associate her with a living being anymore. Furthermore, she is just a side effect of a twisted individual's mind consumed by his extreme love for her.  The extreme change in his mood shows his love changing from a feeling to an

Browning uses diction describing porphyria as angelic to stress her majestic qualities to the reader. She is capable of making “all the cottage warm” and can prevent any “cold” or “storm” from coming in. She has nice cloths, long golden hair, a white shoulder and white skin. She is clearly

Harold states that the masculine form of her name is Porphyry, a representative in the school of Neoplatonism (20). He concludes that, "Porphyria’s lover fanatically acts in accordance with a Neoplatonic view of the world which carries him . . . into madness." This Neoplatonic thought allows him to believe he has the ability to free himself from physical limitations "through the dichotomy of his conscious self in the first half of the poem and through his physical behavior in the latter part" (21). Harold suggests the poem’s title is directly correlated to the actions and thoughts of Porphyria’ s lover.

The speaker in Porphyria’s Lover does things that make the reader believe that he is acting irrationally, but from his perspective the logic behind his actions could be seen as reasonable. He is in love with a woman who is love with him and everyone else. He makes a decision that can be seen as irrational but in the end, it works out and you see why he did it and what positive aftermath was after it. In this poem, the speaker is in love with Porphyria but he doesn’t receive the love and display of affection that he wants from her. He sees her withdrawing her clothes and this brings in even more passion than he already had for her.

Feminism is a female movement that has been around for a long time and it has evolved through many years. Many women call themselves feminists because women are not treated as equals to men and they would like to change that. Women were treated very unfairly, well up to the late 1900’s and they did not have many rights. Back in those days gender stereotypes were clear, the woman was there to be a housewife and the man made the money. Men also made the decisions in the family and the woman had to obey. I think feminists back then were right to want change, because they were not even close to be equal with men. White women did have it hard in those times, however they did not have it as hard as the black women. For example, “ Black women whose

only way this is possible is to kill her. This occurs to him after he

Nevertheless, it is the only poem on the list containing dramatic irony. The title alone is misleading, as the poem is not about Porphyria’s lover, rather her murderer. The speaker is completely unaware that he has done something wrong, proclaiming in line 42, after strangling her, “I am quite sure she felt no pain.” He believes he made her happy, and that her love is his forever, whereas the readers know that he is insane and that he has just murdered this woman. There is a sort of detached madness in his belief that he has won her ultimate

The title of the poem leads the reader to believe that the speaker and the woman have been in a relationship for some time. It evokes the image of a woman secretly visiting her lover. Then, the speaker tells the reader that Porphyria “glides” into his house and “kneel’d and make the cheerless grate/Blaze up, and all the cottage warm” (6-9). Only someone who had visited

Feminism advocates women’s rights based on the equality of the sexes. Elizabeth Barrett Browning may have been one of the first feminists of Britain, during the nineteenth century, women were still viewed as inferior to men. Although men at the time did not believe women had a greater purpose in