Browning gives us insights into people at crucial points in their lives. Compare the ways in which the poems use the dramatic monologue form as well as language to bring out the feelings and situation of the characters in the poems.

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Rebecca Laughton,

Mrs Sanderson,

English, UC4U, 02/05/07

Browning gives us insights into people at crucial points in their lives. Compare the ways in which the poems use the dramatic monologue form as well as language to bring out the feelings and situation of the characters in the poems.

            Robert Browning in all three of his poems, ‘My Last Duchess’, ‘The Laboratory’  and ‘Porphyry’s lover’, create an unusual original perspective for the readers of the poems. They all are of the same theme, murders/killings, because of love. Either because the lover is  jealous, or because of hate or of love itself.  

           ‘The Laboratory’ , shows us insight of a women who’s ‘lover’, is in love with another women. She wants to kill for love, and is motivated by jealousy. To hurt the man, she intends to poison the persona, with the poison the man makes. The women, who Browning has made to narrate and express her feelings in the poem, seems to be quite strange, but also very sly and cunning when it comes to getting the poison of the man. From the way the language is expressed, to define her character. She even helps him make the poison, ‘Grind away moisten and mash up thy paste…’ We can see by the language of the poem, that the women wants the man to suffer. ‘He is sure to remember her dying face!’ From this we can tell that the women is trying to make the women look ugly, so that he may picture that face forever. ‘Let death be felt and the proof remain…’  It is obvious from some quotes that she is very eager to kill, ‘Quick-is it finished?’ When she sees the finished poison she says, ‘The colour’s too grim!’ This shows how clever and aware the women really is, as she wants the poison to look presentable, so the man’s lover may want to drink it. ‘…ere she fix and prefer!’

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          The dramatic monologue in this poem, brings out the feelings of the character and Browning has created more for the poem as a whole by doing this. If it was in third person, the poem wouldn’t be so affective, and would be less interesting because it is not from the killer herself and it would not be expressed as well. This is what makes all the three poems more effective. This poem is divided into stanzas, and this helps the poem to be more interesting, for it makes you read quicker and so gets closer ...

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