How does Browning show the balance of power between men and women in 'My Last Duchess' and 'Porphryria's Lover'?

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How does Browning show the balance of power between men and women in ‘My Last Duchess’ and ‘Porphryria’s Lover’?

In these two poems Robert Browning shows the balance of power in male-female relationships. Both are very similar in the way that they portray the women having more power than they should have, and the men not having the power they think they should have.

In the first poem, ‘My Last Duchess’, Browning shows the Duke not having full control over his wife, the Duchess. In the second poem, ‘Porphyria’s Lover’, the narrator does not have control because she is in a higher class and cannot be with him and she would lower her class and she is not ready to give it up.

In ‘My Last Duchess’, the Duke is talking to someone about the dead Duchess. He first refers to power over the Duchess in the poem when he says about the painting of her behind the curtain, and if anybody wants to see it they would have to ask him first,

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‘Since none puts by

The curtain I have drawn for you, but I’

This shows that he still has control over her even though she has passed on. After that he writes about how every little detail seemed to please her,

‘She had

A heart… how shall I say... too soon made glad,

Too easily impressed; she liked whate’er

She looked on, and her looks went everywhere.’

The Duke gets quite angry at this point,

‘The bough of cherries some officious fool

Broke in the orchard for her,’

This is about how a man broke into the orchard, took a ...

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