My Last Duchess by Robert Browning centers on historical events revolving around the Duke of Ferrara-Alfonso. Alonso the speaker of the poem narrates how he is entertaining and envoy sent to negotiate his second marriage after the death of his first wife. As he shows the visitors around the palace, he stops in front of the late Duchess’s portraits and starts recalling past events through monologue. The reader realizes that the Duke caused the death of the Duchess. On the other hand, My Ex- Husband by Gabriel Spera depicts a woman who found strength to fight for her beliefs when she discovered that her spouse was having another affair. As the poem beginning, the woman is preparing to go out with her new lover when he notices the picture of …show more content…
Both My Last Duchess and My Ex Husband are similar because they revolve around unrequited or lost love. Both speakers, a man and a woman, though different in sexes, express similar plight for unresponsive spouses who compel them to be jealous and bitter, therefore not bothered by their loss. Each speaker in the poems is conversing with a friend and explains what led to the end of their former relationship. “She thanked men,—good! But thanked Somehow—I know not how—as if she ranked My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name With anybody’s gift (Browning, 31-34). On the other hand, Spera describes the speaker’s discontentment with her spouse’s behavior “And he flirted-fine!/but flirted somehow a bit Too ardently*, too blatantly, as if, If someone ever noticed, no one cared How slobbishly he carried on affairs” (Spera, 27-30). Spear describes how the speaker’s husband insulted his wife by having open relationships with other women. Both poems start in the same manner “That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall” (Browning, 1) and “That’s my ex-husband pictured on the shelf” (Brea, 1). The speakers start by showing their
Initially, both speakers in the literary texts are similar because they killed their lovers. In Duchess, the duke that is the speaker says blatantly that he killed his last wife. As the speaker says in lines 45-46, “I gave commands; then the smiling stopped all together.” These lines mean that he told her to stop smiling, but she didn’t listen to him, so therefore he killed her, thus the smiles stopped all together. He explained that he did this such action because she smiled too much. In the same way, the speaker of Lover explained that he killed his lover too. The speaker grabbed his woman’s hair, and wrapped it around her neck three times, and strangled her to death! “I found a thing to do, and all her hair in one long yellow string I wound three times her little throat around, and strangled her” (Lines 37-41).
In contrast to Macbeth’s love for his wife, in Browning’s ‘My Last Duchess’ there is an absence of the romanticised emotion of love. The Duke refers to his wife as ‘My Last Duchess. Here the use of the possessive pronoun ‘my’ gives us the idea from the outset that the Duke saw his wife as merely a possession. The iambic pentameter of ten syllables per line used in the poem also emphasises possession by stressing ‘my’ further in the pattern. Browning’s portrayal of love is one that is absent of emotional attachment, but instead something by which he could possess and have power over her. It could be argued that there are similarities in the way that Lady Macbeth also uses the emotion of love. Being in the form of a dramatic monologue, use
On the other hand, the speaker in Spera’s poem is female. This is a slight variation between the two. The speaker of both the poems is pointing out how the wronged spouse was treated and you see that both marriages come to an end through the imagery provided within both poems, as well as the tone. In the poem “My Last Duchess” quotes such as “Herself be lessened so, nor plainly” (Line 40) and “I gave commands; then all smiles stopped together” (Lines 45-46) The Duke had the Duchess killed, which is the display of how he had wronged his wife because in his eyes the wife didn’t give her all of her attention and gave too much to other men. This implies jealously. Spera’s poems idea of being wronged in betrayed seems to lay within the sign of adultery which in the end ended in divorce. “How slobbishly he carried on affairs” (Line 30) The ex-husband committed adultery, this creating jealousy from women and causing the end of their marriage. You see the end of the betrayal with the following lines “So, I made some calls, filed some claims, All the kisses Stopped together.” (Lines
...seful miscommunication between men and women. Lastly, when looking through the imagined perspective of the thoughtless male tricksters, the reader is shown the heartlessness of men. After this reader’s final consideration, the main theme in each of the presented poems is that both authors saw women as victims of a male dominated society.
The ordinary, but shepherd-like and curious enough to look realistically at the nature, Speaker of this poem shall be married; this much realizing the subtle fears and emotions of a "married ear" and sympathizing with it.
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.
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.
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
In Browning’s “My Last Duchess”, the speaker whom we discover to be the Duke and husband of the Duchess in question is an arrogant aristocrat. At first glance, it may seem that he is a grieving husband who is proud to show the portrait of his last wife, but the more that you hear him speak, the more his true personality is demonstrated. He is critical of his late wife and wants to ensure that his visitor understands that she was unworthy to be his Duchess.
Both of these poems can be used read from different points of view and they could also be used to show how society treated women in the Nineteenth Century: as assets, possessions. Both of these poems are what are known as a dramatic monologue as well as being written in the first person. The whole poem is only one stanza long, and each line in the stanza comprises of eight syllables. ‘My Last Duchess’ is about a member of the nobility talking to an ambassador concerning his last wife, who later on in the poem is revealed to have been murdered by the person speaking, who is about to marry his second wife. ‘Porphyria's Lover’ gives an insight into the mind of an exceptionally possessive lover, who kills his lover in order to capture that perfect moment of compassion. ‘Porphyria's Lover’ uses an alternating rhyme scheme during most of the poem except at the end. The whole poem is only one stanza long, and each line in the stanza comprises of eight syllables.
Despite my praise of this poem, I found the Duke’s character to be alarming. His viewership on his wife is quite frankly, archaic and primitive. His power hunger demeanor attributes his wife’s friendly and loving personality to being unfaithful. The line where the Duke
Robert A. Heinlein said, “A competent and self-confident person is incapable of jealousy in anything. Jealousy is invariably a symptom of neurotic insecurity.” Robert Browning’s “My Last Duchess,” told from the perspective of the Duke in the form of a dramatic monolog. It showcases the Duke conversing with the Count’s representative about a hopeful marriage to the Count’s daughter as well as recalling his late wife. The Duke uses the opportunity to express his jealousy towards the Duchess. In “My Last Duchess,” a poem by Robert Browning, the Duke expresses the theme of jealousy to hide his inner struggle of insecurity.
picture of her. During the poem he describes in a sly sort of way why
Though ballads and Sonnets are poems that can depict a picture of someone’s beloved, they can have many differences. For instance, a Ballad is a story in short stanzas such as a song would have, where as a sonnet typical, has a traditional structure of 14 lines employing several rhyme schemes and adheres to a tight thematic organization. Both Robert Burn’s ballad “The Red, Red, Rose, and William Shakespeare’s “of the Sonnet 130 “they express their significant other differently. However, “The Red, Red, Rose depicts the Falling in new love through that of a young man’s eyes, and Shakespeare’s sonnet 130 depicts a more realistic picture of the mistress he writes about; which leaves the reader to wonder if beauty is really in the eyes of the beholder.
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.