Jealousy and obsessive love is a theme in Porphyria's Lover and the Duchess of Malfi. Analyse the poem closely making appropriate links to the Duchess Of Malfi.

Authors Avatar

Jealousy and obsessive love is a theme in Porphyria’s Lover and the Duchess of Malfi. Analyse the poem closely making appropriate links to the Duchess Of Malfi.

        The theme of jealousy and obsessive love naturally becomes apparent through the opening lines of the poem, as Browning uses the pathetic fallacy of the ‘wind’ which ‘tore the elm-tops down for spite’ to personify human jealousy. The verbs associated with the ‘wind’ are ‘awake’, ‘tore’, and ‘vex’, as Browning juxtaposes nature with human qualities to show how they are similar – they are both capable of becoming destructive over what they possess. The wind destroys the ‘elm-tops’, but Porphyria’s lover goes to the extent of murder. This is enhanced by the deliberate emotional breakthrough that Browning makes in his dramatic monologue, when he describes how he ‘listened with heart fir to break’. The effectiveness of the dramatic monologue is that Browning unknowingly reveals things about himself and at this particular point he has expressed how he is emotionally unstable. The ‘heart’ has connotations of love and warmth but Browning paradoxically associated negative feelings such as to ‘break’, to express his incompleteness and sadness. Moreover the verb ‘break’ is deliberately end-stopped to reveal the intensity of his feelings and the obsessive nature of his love for Porphyria.

Join now!

        

Browning gives a clear insight into the lover’s obsessiveness over Porphyria through the overly detailed description of when she enters the lover’s house. She ‘glided in’ and ‘shut the cold out’, which denotes the ease with which she enters and the control she has over her actions. The sibilance in ‘She shut’ signifies how strong she is, but paradoxically the soft ‘s’ sounds undermine this power she has. Porphyria’s power in contrast to her lover’s lower status in society, sets the conflict in their relationship and from this the lover’s jealousy grows. The lover is powerless because he has ...

This is a preview of the whole essay