Compare And Contrast My Last Duchess And Porphyrias Lover On the Issue of Love
My Last Duchess and Porphyrias Lover are poems which were written by Robert Browning during the Victorian period. The poems expose the failure of a relationship and the complex nature of love between a man and a woman. The aspects of jealousy, vanity, pride, obsessive desire, beauty, and flirtatious behaviour are depicted in both poems. The poems were written in the form of a dramatic monologue; this gives the reader an insight into the narrators inner thoughts and motives when involved in a particular situation. Using this literary technique, Browning allows the reader to explore the abnormal psychology of the two speakers and also to get closely involved with two acts of murder.
In Porphyria's Lover Browning gives the reader a dramatic insight into the twisted mind of an abnormally possessive lover, who wishes the moment of love to last forever; while My Last Duchess gives an insight in the love a possessive husband has for his beautiful, supposedly flirtatious wife. The men end up murdering their objects of desire, the women, because they are unable to control the women and come to term with the intense feelings they have for them. Porphyrias Lover illustrates the relationship in an affair while My Last Duchess portrays the relationship in a marriage.
Both the poems are long single stanza poems which consist of lines that are irregular in length. The language in Poryphyrias Lover is natural, much less formal and the cadence or rhythm of the poem mimics that of natural speech. The rhyming scheme of Porphyrias Lover is ABABB; this makes it more fluent and in tune with the passion felt by the lover. Porphyrias lover describes his heart to be in a state fit to break and his kiss to be burning; this intensity and the asymmetry of the rhyming scheme represents the chaos in the mind of the narrator.
My Last Duchess has been written in 28 rhyming couplets. The rhyming scheme is AABB. The language is more formal and the enjambment in My Last Duchess is more explicit compared to Porphyrias Lover. An easy conversational flow of the poem is created by the use of mid-line pauses, at regular intervals. By portraying the Duke to be talking naturally about the murder of his wife, Browning has shown the Duke to be cold and without passion.
My Last Duchess is loosely based on historical events involving Alfonso, the Duke of Ferrara, who lived in the 16th century. The Duke, who has been recently widowed, is shown to be entertaining an emissary who has come to negotiate the Dukes marriage to the daughter of another powerful family. As he shows the visitor through his mansion, he stops before a portrait of his late, last Duchess and starts reminiscing about her.
Unlike My Last Duchess which is set in a mansion and depicts grandeur; Porphyrias Lover portrays a scene of rural simplicity, it is set in a cosy cottage by a lake in the countryside. A rosy-cheeked girl named Porphyria is shown to enter the cottage, out from a raging storm and lights a fire making the cottage warm. The poem depicts the moment just after a main event, which is the death of Porphyria. Porphyria already lies dead when the speaker begins to convey his account of the main event.
The female character in My Last Duchess is portrayed by the Duke to be flirtatious. The Duke claims that she easily let herself be charmed by other men; shamelessly blushed in front of them and not just in her husbands presence only. He later stated that, she ranked My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name With anybodys gift, which reveals that she showed her appreciation of the love and prestige he had given her just the same as the love and interest offered to her by other men; meaning that she did not value his love and his prestige; did not care that her behaviour was trifling and dishonouring his family name. From the revelations of the Duke the reader is lead to believe that the Duchesss rare beauty and flirtatious manner attracted many admirers that competed for her attention which used to make the Duke jealous. The manner in which the Duke raves suggests that most of the supposed transgressions took place only in his mind. The Dukes portrayal of his late wife suggests that he was a very suspicious, paranoid and insecure person.
The Duchess did not seem to recognize the expectations the Duke had of her. She simply acted naively, not understanding the importance of the etiquette she was supposed to follow as the wife of a Duke. Porphyria also seems to be fairly young and beautiful. She appears to be the epitome of the ideal Victorian woman; 'fair, Perfectly pure and good'. In this way both female protagonists are young and beautiful however Porphyria is by no means as innocent and nave as the Duchess is depicted to be.
In Porphyrias Lover the lover is shown to be sitting quietly in his cottage waiting for Porphyria to arrive. Porphyria is portrayed as unusually forward for a woman of her era. She makes physical advances towards the Lover; this can be seen when the lover describes her to have, 'put my arm about her waist' and 'made her smooth white shoulder bare'. Porhyrias behaviour suggests that she was bold, may have been the dominant one in the relationship and may have had other lovers. In the Victorian period the men were more dominant and the women were supposed to be more subservient.
The lover may not be comfortable with the fact that he has to wait for Porphyria to arrive. Porphyria attempts to convey the love she has for the lover by softly telling him of the deep love she has for him. However, the speaker is aware that Porphyria cannot make a true commitment to him. The lover is shown to be overwhelmed by the love he has for Porphyria, he is overcome by his passion and desire to be her only lover. Porphyria's lover could not handle the thought of them not being together, and for this reason he murders Porphyria in a moment of passion.
As the couple embrace the speaker reveals the manner in which he murdered Porphyria and gained her total devotion and love for ever. He takes a strand of her long blond hair which symbolises a rope, repeatedly wraps it around her throat and strangles Porphyria until she dies. Browning has pictured the lover to have used Porphyrias hair, the very object that enhanced her beauty and supposedly attracted other men, to end her life. The lover does not show any remorse for his act. After her murder, he is shown to give her a burning kiss and prop up her head on his shoulder. In this way the lover is shown to be satisfied that he has Porphyria totally for himself, has complete control over her and no longer is powerless in the relationship hence is in total control as Victorian men should be. The murder of the female character in Porphyrias Lover is shown to have occurred recently and is described in detail.
In My Last Duchess the Duchess is revealed to have been murdered in the past and the actual act has not been described. The Duke is shown to be infuriated because he is unable to stop the advances of other men towards his wife and unable to suppress the behaviour of his wife. He is shown to inform the emissary that he was unable to make the Duchess understand his will and that he was unable to and refused to do so because he thought that the act would force him to stoop to her level. The Duke reveals his frustration by uttering the words, Oh sir, she smile and then says, Much the same smile? This grew and then justifies his act by claiming that in the end he had no option but to give command, which made all her smiles stop for ever. Browning has used irony, in which the real meaning is concealed by the literal meanings of the words. The giving of Command to stop all smiles suggests to the reader that he had her murdered.
The message in both of the poems is that Victorian men are desperate to be in control and need to be the centre of attention and if this is not the case they are prepared to go to utmost lengths to achieve this, even if it means having to kill someone they love. Browning is trying to reveal the truth about relationships between upper class women and men and their devious activities during the Victorian times.
Browning has written these poems possibly to erase any misconceptions the lower class have of the upper class as being always honourable. The overall themes of the two poems are obsessive love and both of the poems deal with the theme of possession which is shown when the men kill their love as a way of exercising power over them.
The opening lines in My Last Duchess conjure up an image of grandeur and magnificence in the minds of the reader. The revelation that the female character is a Duchess and that the Duke had her painted by a renowned painter Fra Pandolf and towards the end the mention of a rare bronze sculpture of the God Neptune by the legendary Claus of Innsbruck informs the reader that the Duke is a man of extremely high status and wealth. In comparison the scene in Porphyrias Lover is much more humble and of simplicity. The depiction of a small cottage next to a lake, the description of the rainy night and the wind tearing the elm tops outside the cottage; then in contrast the warmth created in the cottage by Porphyria conjures up a more romantic image.
The setting in Porphyrias Lover is important in another way as it reflects the personality and feelings of the lover. The sullen wind was soon awake and I listened with heart fit to break describes the lovers anger. The use of personification emphasises his frustration. Browning uses the rain and the use of night to create a dull gloomy mood; once more this indicates the lover to be mundane. In contrast Porphyria is shown to be more cheerful, beautiful and is portrayed in a more positive way. She appears to glide as she enters the cottage, makes the cottage warm and cosy by lighting a fire and displays her affection by putting her lovers arm about her waist, murmuring her love. The use of similie in the line As a shut bud that holds a bee, suggests the wild nature of Porphyria.
Similarly the formal controlled tone of the Duke in My Last Duchess in contrast to the beautiful and naive Duchess who rode on her horse, was easily impressed by compliments and the display of her appreciation by the spot of joy on her neck emphasises the innocence of the Duchess in the mind of the reader. The use of contrast in both poems portrays and emphasises the men as being the villains.
The word smile means the pleasure the Duchess displayed when she was admired and given compliments by other men. Along with this display of pleasure the Duke revealed that the Duchess thanked men. By repeating the words smile and thanked, Robert Browning has drawn the attention of the reader to them and successfully disclosed the irritation and frustration felt by the Duke by the behaviour of his wife.
In Porphyrias Lover the personification used to describe the lovers heart swell and grow shows the contentment of the lover on learning that Porphyria worshipped him. The use of repetition when he says that she was mine, mine, shows his possessive nature and the triumph he felt at being the only one she loved at that moment.
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