My Last Duchess Essay

In the poem “My Last Duchess,” Robert Browning writes about the story of the Duke of Ferrara. The Duke is giving a tour of his art collection in his estate to a servant of the family of his new prospective wife to be. When he gets to the painting of his previous wife, he begins to talk about how she was, how impressed she was with everything, how he didn’t like it, and indicates that he gets rid of her somehow. Browning uses language, voice, and style to portray this story. Browning uses two different language devices in this poem, simile and symbolism. The first device, simile, is used when the Duke first shows the servant the painting. Browning writes: That 's my Last Duchess painted on the wall,

Looking as if she were alive. I call

That piece a wonder, now: Frà Pandolf’s hands

Worked busily a day, and there she stands.

Will’t please you sit and look at her? I said (1-5)

Here the Duke is trying to emphasize that the painter, who worked on the painting just for a day, managed to produce a piece so well made and realistic that it looked as if the Duchess was just sitting there with them. By reading the last line there, the reader is able to get an

He had no control over her smile, which “belonged to him”, so when he gave commands the smiles stopped. Here the reader is given a notion that the Duke either murdered the Duchess or got rid of her somehow. Another instance where the symbol of control is shown is at the end when he shows the servant the statue of Neptune: “Together down, sir. Notice Neptune, though,/Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity” (54-55). The statue of the Roman god of the sea controlling one of the ocean’s creatures reinforces the notion that the Duke wants to hold all the