Robert Browning 's Porphyria 's Lover

Robert Browning wrote the two poems, "My Last Duchess" and "Porphyria's Lover." Both poems convey an thoughtful, examination profound commentary about the concept of love.

Robert Browning provides a critical view of gender and power relations in his dramatic monologues “Porphyria’s Lover” and “My Last Duchess.” The dramatic monologue, as S.S. Curry has written, "reveals the struggle in the depths of the soul” (11). Browning delves into the minds of characters to show their conceptions of women and ideas of power. He explores the mental processes of the characters, and invites readers to question societal ideas of power and gender. The mental pathologies of the speakers is emphasized, which forces readers to examine the sanity of their own notions of gender dynamics.

Hardy initially uses similes to illustrate the bleak landscape, referring to the “sun [as] white” and leaves as “grey”, to emphasise his sorrowful opinion of love. Specific diction of bleak words strongly communicates his message of love being hopeless and sorrowful. He also uses personification of “starving sod”, to allude that the earth is frozen and desiring nutrients which it lacks. This creates an undesirable setting and mood of despair and sorrow expressing how he perceives love. In contrast, Browning orientates an inviting, cheerful setting through the use of similes. The scene is vibrant with “little waves that leap” and “warm sea-scented beach[es]”, allowing the reader to perceive it as joyful. This illustrates how he regards love as an uplifting experience, which brings people together. He structures his poem with no stanzas, allowing for the reader to follow the radiant journey of love. In contrast, Hardy includes stanzas allowing him to express his message though new topics. They consist of the bleak setting, his former partners eyes, her bitter smile and his message of how all love disappoints. He includes an enclosed rhyme scheme, presenting the entrapment of love, expressing no freedom and joy in relationships. In opposition, Browning uses anaphora of “and” to express how the speaker’s mind is not in the moment, looking ahead to the future where they reunite with their lover. It is evident that Hardy conveys his message of love as sorrowful and full of despair, in contrast Browning message reveals love as gracious and

Fairy tales tell us that once upon a time a girl met a boy; they fell in love, and lived happily ever after. Reality is not that simple. Long-term relationships force couples to become more acquainted with each other, include themselves in each others’ worlds and eventually develop further connections. However, a relationship can come to an end point and therefore one will try to come back in the other’s life. This type of relationship is remarked in Fran Kimmel’s short story “Laundry Day”. The author suggests that getting rid of unhealthy relationship leads to happiness, the author uses the protagonist’s transformation, contrasting characters and symbols.

Robert Browning uses descriptive details to portray a theme of how darkness rises from warmth and happiness by showing us on how a man’s love for someone makes him turn to savagery. The narrator of the poem has very deep feelings for his lover, but he only thinks of himself and he never wants the girl to leave his side so he does the unthinkable. In the times that the girl was not home or was not with the narrator then there was coldness and darkness, but when she was with the man then the house would “blaze up, and all the cottage warm”. She created hope and the narrator needed that constantly, so he realized that his love was too strong to put on hold everyday when she would leave. The fact that the narrator had to watch his lover leave everyday

Relationships have shaped humanity since the beginning of time. From Adam and Eve to Romeo and Juliet to Kim Kardashian and Kanye West, relationships influence culture and fuel the imaginations and passions of many. Perhaps the most important aspect of a relationship lies in what it brings long-term: the continuation of our species. For all these reasons, relationships constantly appear and reappear in culture, music, and literature. However Charles Dickens and Betty Smith do not focus the effect of relationships on the bonding of two people together, but rather the full development and maturation of one individual’s identity. In their respective novels, Great Expectations and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Dickens and Smith explore how relationships impact a person’s identity and the importance of caution in selecting a lifelong partner.

In John Updike's short story, "The A&P", he writes of an eighteen-year-old cashier who is infatuated with three girls that enter the store and in Robert Browning's poem, Porphyria's Lover, He writes of a man's intense passion for his lover. Even thought these two works are different in context, they have very striking similarities. Updike's narrating main character, Sammy, is plagued by middle class monotonous life style. He shows his possessive, but spontaneous side as he describes the girls in the story with great detail and enthusiasm. Browning's narrating main character, a man unnamed is plagued by his deeply devoted love for his mistress and their inability

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’.

Porphyria’s Lover and The Laboratory “Porphyria’s Lover” and “The Laboratory” both deal with crimes of passion. Explore ways Browning explains ways of obsessive nature of his character and analysis the effects of literary techniques. “Porphyria’s Lover” is a poem about a crime and passion. Porphyria is a young, wealthy girl who seems to have abandoned her family’s tradition of choosing wealthy men as lovers. Her lover remains anonymous, this could be because he has murdered her and does not want his name releasing.

look at but he feels as if the Duchess takes him for granted and she

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

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

The middle-class ladies didn't work, and didn't have a life outside their homes. They dedicated all of their time, energies and passions into keeping their men happy and contented; and in return, were loved, pampered and protected from the harsh realities of life. Even though this idea of total subjection and passivity, wouldn't have a hope of success in today's society, the level of trust and commitment these two "Romantic Poets" apparently share, could be the ideal that all couples should aspire to. In sharp contrast to Browning idealistic and spiritual love poetry of the 1800s, Seamus Heaney's Twice Shy uses an altogether more contemporary and realistic style of prose too describe love in the 20th century.

During the nineteenth century people were under a strict patriarchal rule, especially the women. In those times, women were seen as ornaments “a momentary toy of passion” to the society and properties to be traded within marriage, therefore, Victorian moralists repressed female sexuality. As a result, for a woman to admit she even had sexual desires was considered sinful, let alone acting on those desires - like Porphyria did - was borderline criminal. Moreover, when Porphyria “glided in” she “untied her hat and let her damp hair fall”. Victorian moralists referred to female fornicators as ‘fallen’ women. Additionally, committing adultery was also a sin as it went against one of the Ten Commandments “Thou shall not commit adultery”, therefore, Porphyria ‘letting her hair fall’ could symbolise the boundaries she had willingly chosen to overstep by coming to meet her lover.

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