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In My Last Duchess, while the Duke is speaking to the emissary about his future bride he points out a painting of his last wife. Starting off he seems to be a sorrowful widower reliving his wife’s memory through “The depth and passion of “(Browning Line 8) her portrait on the wall. He points out that the painter captured “that spot/ Of joy into the Duchess’ cheek” (Browning Lines 14-15), but states that “‘t was not/ Her husband’s presence only” (Browning Line 14) that caused her to blush hinting that the Duchess was happy about something other than him and he was quite jealous because of it. In his speaking of her, he gives the impression that he is resentful of his past wife and jealous as well as greedy. His jealousy is declared many times in remarks about her gazing onto others but not the Duke himself, “Strangers like you that pictured countenance, /The depth and passion of its earnest glance, /But to myself they turned” (Browning Lines 7-9). …show more content…
Due to infuriating jealousy, without informing her he was upset “In speech—(which I have not)—to make your will/ Quite clear to such an one, and say, ‘Just this/ Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss,/ Or there exceed the mark’” (Browning Lines 36-39) he commanded to have her murdered “Oh, sir, she smiled, no doubt, Whene’er I passed her; but who passed without /Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands; / Then all smiles stopped together. /There she stands /As if alive” (Browning Lines
In addition to this, Browning sets out the poem in one long stanza. This shows that although later in the poem the narrator is presented to believe he is in control, in actual fact he is not. The long stanza shows a quick thought process that is occurring thought after thought, rather than being planned in advance. It also presents these destructive thoughts to be messy (think of a better word) within his mind, and it seems to be a spur of the moment attack. However the end stops used, slow the pace down.
Robert Browning’s poems ‘Porphyria’s Lover’ and ‘My Last Duchess’ were both written in the form of a dramatic monologue. Both poems show a similarity because they are both narrated from the male lover’s point of view. As a result, the reader becomes more closely involved in the poems and can feel very strong emotions for the individuals portrayed than if the poem was written from the eyes of an ‘outsider’. This form of writing enables Browning to use irony, in which the real meaning is concealed or contradicted by the literal meanings of the words. For example, in ‘My Last Duchess’ the Duke orders the death of his wife, though hides the true meaning in his words:
Obviously, based on these observations, the two men of Browning’s monologues are very similar in some ways but vastly different in others. They both attempted to find a way to make their women immortal by keeping them around. However, one did it as a possession, and the other wasn’t even planned at all beforehand, it just happened. Based on this, the second of the two guys is most definitely the more messed up of the two men.
The Duke thought he had a lot of different gifts to give to his Duchess, “[s]omehow - I know not how - as if she ranked / My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name / With anybody’s gift” (Browning ll 32-34). The gift he thought was most important was the fact that his family name goes back forever, he has such a prestigious hereditary background. By all means, yes, this would make him powerful. However. Browning starts making it a little obvious that his duchess was not all his, “[s]ir, ‘twas all one! My favour at her breast, / The dropping of daylight in the West, / The bough of cherries some officious fool / Broke into the orchard for her” (ll 25-29). At least, according to the Duke, the Duchess is not staying faithful. This could be due to many different kind of reasons, like maybe the Duke is not fertile as the title of the poem suggests that there have been more than one duchess he has had this issue with. As well as the fact that the Duke seems to be very familiar with Fra Pandolf - his painter. If the Duke constantly is having these problems in his relationships, he is more than likely the
"Robert Browning." Critical Survey of Poetry: English Language Series. Ed. Frank N. Magill. Vol. 1. Englewood Cliffs: Salem, 1982. 338, 341.
First of all, both of Browning’s texts incorporate the idea of mental instability through the speakers. The famous quote is stated as: “Love is mad.” For the two texts presented, that definitely applies. Particularly in My Last Duchess, madness can be clearly assessed when the speaker begins to talk to his deceased wife’s portrait. This craze is described when Browning writes: “There she stands as if alive. Will’t please you rise? We’ll meet the company below, then.” (pg. 980 lines 47-48) He talks to the painting as though she was alive, which is just one example of craziness. Maria C. Lamia from Psychology Today expands on this concept when she writes: “When love involves an initial state of bliss, it can ...
Elizabeth Browning starts out her letter by setting up her ethos. She explains to the Emperor about herself and her life. She states, “having grown used to great men (among the Dead at least) I cannot feel entirely at loss in speaking to the emperor Napoleon.” By revealing this, Browning is attempting to build her virtue in the eyes of Napoleon, making her seem more than just a common person. She follows the first paragraph, where she crafted
I call / That piece a wonder, now. Fry Pandolf’s hands” (lines 1-3). For a sane man, especially any normal man who must have lost a wife, it is such an unusual statement—almost too objectifying and detached from human emotions—for a husband to not reference his wife, the supposedly last duchess, as the caricature or art work instead of the human. This is where the audience can see the exploriation of psychological development of the speaker, and especially see the unnamed duke in the poem as losing his sanity or even becoming fragmented. Browning especially reveal more of the duke’s neuroses and sociopathic penchant throughout the poem when the duke describes more of the Duchess personality and habits when he describes her having “A heart—how shall I say?—too soon made glad, / Too easily impressed; she liked whate’er” (lines
I was gratified to see that this critic agreed with my interpretation of the Duchess’s demise, viz., the Duke had her murdered. The theory advanced by my brilliant and magnificent Professor had been that the Duke gave her so many orders and restrictions that she pined away. I had been looking at his famous line “And I choose/never to stoop.” He married her for her beauty but would never lower himself to tell her when she angered him.
In the poem My Last Duchess the author writes about a Duke whos ex wife liked to share her admiration with all around the town the speaker even goes to say, “Too easily impressed; she liked whate’er she looked on, and her looks went everywhere.”.(Browning 1206) The speakers jealousy drove him to killing his wife “A Heart -- how shall I say? -- too soon made glad,”.(Browning 1206) The speaker also wanted to kill her because he felt she was not enough for him and he would of had to “stoop” for her,”E’en then would be some stooping; and I choose to never stoop.”.(Browning 1206)
The doomed Duchess of Robert Browning’s dramatic monologue, “My Last Duchess” is the embodiment of the incarcerated woman taken to the eternal extreme. The setting for this poem is the Italy of the Middle Ages, a time when women had still less freedom than in the Victorian era. Women were regarded as possessions, a form of imprisonment within itself. As Johnson states the theme of “marriage as bondage” is consistently explored throughout Browning’s early wor...
Robert Browning, the poet, uses iambic pentameter throughout the poem. He breaks up the pattern so that every two lines rhyme. Aside from being a dramatic monologue, the poem is also considered lyric poetry because it is a poem that evokes emotion but does not tell a story. The poem is being told in the speaker's point-of-view about his first duchess, also as revealed in the title, The Last Duchess. The setting is important because the duke's attitude correlates to how men treated women at that time. The theme of the poem appears to be the duke's possessive love and his reflections on his life with the duchess, which ultimately brings about murder and his lack of conscience or remorse.
Throughout "My Last Duchess," Browning uses diction to further increase the haunting effect of his dramatic monologue. His precise and scattered word choice is meant to make the reader recognize the underlying haughtiness in his speech to the Count's emissary. The Duke refers to his former wife's portraits "depth" and "passion" in order to place a cloudiness over the realism of the painting. This, along with the "faint" and "half-flush" appearance that "dies along her throat," brings about an overcast appearance to the poem. The Duke's "trifling" lack of "countenance" is evident in his jealousy of
Through the appearance of jealousy, the Duke tries to hide his actual inner struggle of insecurity. The Duke may have that feeling, possibly because of his appearance and how the Duchess usurpers him in that category. This results, in the Duke poisoning the Duchess, because the Duke comes to the conclusion that possibly someday she would grow tired of him and have an affair. So not only did he murder her but in doing so he made sure she could only be with him, thus sealing her fate. For this reason, the Duke clearly thinks of himself as a self-justifier who is attempting to cover up his feelings and actions by getting rid of her. The quote references his insecurity which therefore is a fuel for his jealousy. Michael G. Miller states in his essay, “Browning’s My Last Duchess”, “His subtle and unconscious slander of his last victim exposes at the bottom an instinctive self-justifier or at least a man
In "My Last Duchess", by Robert Browning, the character of Duke is portrayed as having controlling, jealous, and arrogant traits. These traits are not all mentioned verbally, but mainly through his actions. In the beginning of the poem the painting of the Dukes wife is introduced to us: "That's my last Duchess painted on the wall,/ looking as of she were still alive" (1-2). These lines leave us with the suspicion that the Duchess is no longer alive, but at this point were are not totally sure. In this essay I will discuss the Dukes controlling, jealous and arrogant traits he possesses through out the poem.