In The Flea, the man was trying to propose to his girlfriend in a very weird way. At the same time, the poet was attempting to seduce his mistress by overcoming her coyness through argument. His wit and intelligence are employed in persuading the lady to succumb to his passion.
The tone in My Last Duchess is very precise meaning that the Duke knows exactly what he wants and tells the messenger everything. However, it must have felt very patronizing to the messenger to listen to such a demanding and horrific man. The Duke had a very sarcastic tone while talking to the messenger and felt no shame at what he was doing to those women who were his wives.
Porphyria’s Lover was an iniquity, sinister man who makes the scene look dark and evil. The only light in the poem is the woman, who shuts out the bad weather, `She shut the cold and the storm. ‘
The man in The Flea was humorous at trying to be persuasive. This method of trying to be persuasive made their relationship worse. Then he adds that if the woman destroyed The Flea she would destroy more that one life, `Three sins in killing three’, `Flea’s death took life from thee’. She would destroy three lives, his life, her life and the marriage (which he thinks that will take place).
The layout of My Last Duchess is well fitted to the Duke because it has no break which means that he is very sure what he wants, making his voice sound more flowing and it is all in rhyming couplets showing his wide range of vocabulary. He had a conversation with the messenger which was very much one sided like The Flea, the Duke always spoke. The poem seems like it should be a dialogue, including the messenger. However, it was like Porphyria’s Lover, a monologue.
The layout of Porphyria’s Lover is totally opposite to My Last Duchess. The rhythm is very fast fitting the scene of darkness, wickedness and the quick death of Porphyria. However, there is light when Porphyria walks into the cottage, she brightens it up `All her yellow displaced’. There are rhyming couplets but not two lines together, they are like this: - ABABCDCD. The pace gradually builds up which gives the reader a notice that something mad is about to happen. The set rhythm suggests logic to the poem, there is something building up in the room.
The Flea doesn’t have a rhyming pattern, however it does have something else. It has three verses, each verse being a part of the argument to try and persuade the woman, taking the conceit further, the conceit in this poem being they together and The Flea.
Each poem has a mystery woman in it, making them the subject of desire. For instance, Porphyria was the mystery woman who is described as a young, attractive woman but doesn’t play much of a role. The poem is based on the psycho being obsessed with this woman, so as soon as she showed some admiration he wanted to possess that moment in time forever, so he killed her, `While I debated what to do. That moment she was mine, mine, fair.’ `Strangled her’. However, before the murder took place the murderer thought that she had too much in life to take care of, `Too weak, for all her heart’s endeavour, to set its struggling passion free’. The crazy idea of the murderer made Robert Browning name the poem `Madhouse Cell 2’ before he changed the title to Porphyria’s Lover.
My Last Duchess has an anonymous female as well. She was a living attractive, young lady like Porphyria but made the Duke seem like any other man, made her feel special. However, she isn’t described much as a living person at the beginning of the poem. The Duke talks about his last Duchess as a painting on the wall, blushing as the painter did his job because he may have made her feel like an attractive, young woman. The Duke saw his last Duchess as a thick, flirtatious and unappreciative woman, `She smiled, no doubt, whene’er I passed her; but who passed without much the same smile?’
The female in The Flea seemed to be the superior person, ignoring what the man was saying about them being united as one, `Our two bloods mingled be’. The male is trying to be very persuasive but is ignorant in what the woman wants at that stage in the relationship. The woman’ parents are mentioned once about how they never liked the idea of them going out in the first place, `Though parents grudge, and you, we’re met’. The Flea may have seemed like a character, however it is representing a shrine or temple.
The language in My Last Duchess is very artistic and high standard, the language you expect from a Duke. Some words he used are two or three syllables long, `Officious’ `countenance’ `reproduce’. The text is very slow and flowing, which suited the Duke. To make it slow and flowing Robert Browning used comma a lot to slow down the pace an used long word to fit the text. By using long words, the words would have flown off the Duke’ tongue without a breath in between.
In Porphyria’s Lover the words are mostly one syllable long to fit the quick death of Porphyria, `I wound three times her little throat around and strangled her.’ The pace of the text sets the scene in the cottage. However, the pace only starts getting faster when she says she loved him. There is also matching lines that have similar meanings. For instance, `I warily oped her lids; again laughed the blue eyes without a stain.’ `Yet God has not said a word!’ The first quotation meant, when he looked into her eyes he was checking if there was a sinister look in her eyes as a punishment, but there wasn’t, so she was kept perfect. The second quotation meant that because he had just killed someone God should have punished him, but God hadn’t. These two quotations are linked because they both show that he got away with killing an innocent woman.
The language in The Flea is an attempt to mix romance and persuasion together, however, the anonymous woman didn’t fall for the poet’s tricks, `Flea’s death took life from thee.’ This quotation symbolises the finishing of the persuasion and relationship.
