Comparison between Porphyrias Lover and My Last Duchess Essay Example For Students

Comparison between Porphyrias Lover and My Last Duchess Essay In Porphyrias Lover, Browning sets the scene by describing the turbulent weather. The vexatious wind blowing on the trees and the moody lake is a metaphor of the Lovers mind in the poem. It symbolises the violence and anger he has within himself. The Lover is full of hatred inside. The bad weather images is like an omen or a forewarning of whats to come. Maybe its also his insecurities and fears as well as anger how hes waiting for Porphyria, and fears she will not come. Theres a sense of changing of scene after the first four lines describing the weather, which is like an outside circumstance. Once Porphyria enters the cottage in which the lover lives, she shut the cold out and the storm (Line 7). From then on, the outside world is forgotten about. We know that the lover lives in a cottage (Line 9), while Porphyria has just come from a gay feast. This tells us their difference in rank, Porphyria is obviously of a high social rank than her lover. The word Porphyria is the name of a precious jewel, this suggests that she is rich. We have the sense of Porphyria, stepping down her rank when she makes the fire as this is the kind of job usually done by the servant : And kneeled and made the cheerless grate Blaze up, and all the cottage warm Fire symbolises warmth and brightness but it could also mean destruction too. So, like the bad weather outside, the fire is in a way like another warning of what is to happen. Its clever how Browning puts the words Blaze up at the beginning of the line. This makes the words sound like whats happening i.e. the noise of the fire, the room brightened up by the fire. The words Blaze up also sounds very dangerous too. When Porphyria enters, the Lovers hatred towards her is blinded by her beauty. He could be angry because she cant marry him since theres a social difference between their ranks. Lines 11-13 describe Porphyria taking off her dripping cloak and shawl, her soiled gloves and her hat. This detail shows the beauty of Porphyria. This slows down the scene and gives a sense of passing of time. Its almost as Porphyria is exposing herself in Line 11-13, shes allowing her real skin to be seen, its a metaphor of herself, opening out to him, or letting everything out in the open. The word soiled used to describe her gloves is a strong word. It emphasises Porphyria making the fire and making her gloves dirty. These very sensuous and physical language describes the sexuality of their love. Porphyria called her lover but there was no reply. Then she put my arm about her waist, And made her smooth white shoulder bare These two lines feel very unnatural, it is like Porphyria has learnt this. It is like a seduction. Porphyria is telling the Lover to notice her, shes offering herself. Porphyria is too weak and too proud to break her vainer ties with the people of her rank but love breaks all boundaries and the desire she has for him sometimes overcomes that. She left her party, she had come through wind and rain to see him and when she murmured how she loved him, the Lover was surprised and overwhelmed with pride and pleasure that she worshipped him. The moment in which the lover witnesses the womans apparently wholehearted love is also the moment that the Lover attempts to preserve by killing her. He wanted to keep that moment forever. On Line 36, the repetition of mine has the purpose of letting the readers know how controlling he is. He is obsessed with her. Porphyrias Lover wants her to remain pure because he had about Porhyrias independence, her liberty puts his masculine self-estimation at risk. The readers probably think that hes stroking her hair in Line 38 and 39 when on the next line they realise that hes strangling her! Most of the lines of the poem so far had been quite misty and ambiguous in a way but death when it comes is almost a matter of fact and mathematical. Three times her little throat around, And strangled her.. The Lover chose strangulation as the method of murder probably because it ensures that all the important appearance of Porphyria will remain unblemished, her beauty will still remain. The way in which she was strangled by her lover with her own hair is like she strangled herself almost as a way of releasing herself. And strangled her. No pain felt she; I am quite sure she felt no pain The Lover assures himself that he did not really hurt her, that Porphyria didnt struggle, she wanted to die at that moment so that she could be with him forever : So glad it has its utmost will,.. Because the poem is quite ambiguous, therefore it could also be that Porphyria does want to be killed. She wanted to marry him inside his heart but she cant because of her social background. Maybe she accepts what hes doing to her and knew that it was going to happen. A wonderful simile and image is used by Browning to describe the horrific moment when he opens his dead loves eyes : As a shut bud that holds a bee, I warily open her lids : again Laughed the blue eyes without a stain. The Lover is scared that the bees will sting him, maybe that after her death, she will still refuse him. But hes convinced that shes laughing and smiling with happiness and content. When Porphyria is dead, the Lover ..propped her head up as before, Only, this time my shoulder bore Her head, which droops upon it still We can see a reverse of roles here, after her death, the Lover is supporting her head, a simile of his control over Porphyria now that shes dead. Towards the end of the poem, Line 58 onwards ha gone to present tense. Hes now thinking of what hes done. He committed suicide. And yet God has not said a word! God is like his conscience, maybe hes waiting for that to awaken. While the language used in Porphyrias Lover is quite formal, My Last Duchess is different in its tone. My Last Duchess is more of a conversational tone, we can see that in the first few lines, the Duke is like introducing someone : Thats my last Duchess painted on the wall Victorian Poems EssayThe whole twist of Porphyrias Lover depends on the reader thinking that this is about a very sentimental, romantic love and then discovering at the end that it is actually about a different sort of love an obsessive, dangerous sort of love. The title is quite conventional and suggests that this poem is about a kind of noble, romantic love, with Porphyrias Lover as the hero. In a way, it could be said that the love in Porphyrias Lover is actually self-love, as the lovers obsessions means that he feels he must kill the woman he loves in order to keep her forever, but of course, he destroys their love as he destroys her life. Yet, we only realise the full extent of the lovers madness once we have read the whole poem. This love is exactly the same love presented in My Last Duchess but in this poem, this love is more subtle but is equally sinister. The lover in Porphyrias Lover killed his lover because he wanted to control her and keep her forever and similarly in My Last Duchess, the Duchess was killed so that she cant go off anywhere. The Duke in this poem shows how cruel, vain and possessive he is. He talk about his possessions and he clearly though his last Duchess was a possession as well. Duke gives himself away and reveals the cruelty underneath his confident manner. Browning satirises the Duke. The Duke thinks he is a man of culture and learning but we, the reader, realise that he is an unpleasant person who is only interested in collecting people like objects. In a way, this poem is very sad because embedded inside is a picture of a beautiful innocent girl whose life was cut short simply because she smiled too much and took pleasure in many things. She is probably killed without evening knowing the reason why. It is easier for the Duke to give commands to servants to have his wife killed than to point out what he dislikes or what he was dissatisfied about. It is also interesting to see how the social rank of the male and the female in the poems differ from each other. In Porphyrias Lover, the male is a man who lives in a cottage while Porphyria is of a social ranking much higher than him. He was afraid of losing her because people will disapprove of their relationship because of the social ranking difference. In My Last Duchess, the Duke in the poem is obviously a man of wealth and authority. Were not sure of the Duchesss social ranking before she married the Duke but it is safe to assume that she was in the same social ranking as the Duke. This is because he obviously cares a lot about dowry ( Line 51 ). A dowry is a gift given by the brides family in arranged marriage usually money, jewels, property and/or land. If the marriage between the Duke and the Duchess was arranged then they must be more or less the same social ranking. Also he probably wouldnt have married her if there was not a sufficient amount of dowry for him. The bigger the dowry, the more important the husband to be bought. The Duke was actually dissatisfied with her because he felt that she didnt respect his aristocratic background and always gave her attention to other unimportant people of lower rank. The lunacy that Browning exposes is that the two of his monologists crime in My Last Duchess and especially in Porphyrias Lover can be regarded as rational. It shows us how apparently reasoned justification can be founded on jealousy, fear, and obsession. It can also be founded on fantasy as shown in Porphyrias Lover, what the Lover has done is not fantasy in his mind but he probably has played the scene of killing his lover in his mind over and over again. The verse form and rhyme pattern is very interesting in both Porphyrias Lover and My Last Duchess. In Porphyrias Lover, the rhyming scheme works in groups of five A B A B B but the informal phrasing doesnt really emphasise the rhyme, so that we seem to be hearing the spontaneous thoughts of the speaker in the monologue. There is also an effect of moving on. The unexpectedness of the rhyme pattern is a metaphor of the unexpected twist of the murder in the poem. In My Last Duchess, the verse form is couplets, and theyre pentameter line with five stress. The poet chose to use this particular verse form so that it seems conversational as the Duke in the poem is actually talking to someone. Theres also enjambement in the poem sense of sentence running on to the next line : Looking as if se were alive. I call That piece a wonder Browning also uses enjambement very effectively in Line 16 : to say Her mantle laps Over my ladys wrist too much The sentence runs on to the beginning of the next line and echoes the effect of the cloth falling over her wrist, its acting out what the words are describing. The enjambement makes the rhyme less obvious and so its not drawn to our attention. The rhyme keeps the structure of the poem while the enjambement has a more natural effect. This is just like the Duke in the poem, he lives life by regularity, his life is in a very controlled pattern, very regular and formal, just like the couplets. Hes had emotional things that he cant tolerate, and the shift in enjambement disturbs the formality of his life. The effect of enjambement disguises the fact that the Duke lives by rules. When you read the poem, you have to change the way you say it and might need to take some time to try and get the stresses in the right place because of the effect of enjambement. My Last Duchess is like a play, and the pentameter line helps to make it seem like a story. Youll notice that both poems is only in one stanza. In My Last Duchess, this effect makes the poem seem like half story and half poem. It seems like a story because its all in one stanza and it seems like a poem because it has rhymes. Because it has no separate stanzas, it has no interruption. Porphyrias Lover also only has only one stanza, but its five line groups is quite odd and signals the strangeness of the events in the situation in Porphyrias Lover. The events in Porphyrias Lover are more disturbed and distorted than My last Duchess.