Porphyria also seems to be fairly young and beautiful. She appears to be the epitome of the ideal Victorian woman;
‘… fair,
Perfectly pure and good’.
In this way both female protagonists are young and beautiful however Porphyria is by no means as innocent and naïve as the Duchess is depicted to be. She is portrayed as unusually forward, even seductive, for a woman of her era. She makes physical advances towards the Lover as she ‘put my arm about her waist’ and ‘made her smooth white shoulder bare’. Not behaving in a way befitting the Victorian ideal of women would have been cause for some people in her society to think that Porphyria was in part responsible for what happened to her.
Throughout both poems, the male protagonists are extremely possessive of their partners. In ‘Porphyria’s Lover’ the male protagonist views his partner as too weak;
‘Too set its struggling passion free
From pride, and vainer ties dissever’.
Here the vainer ties could symbolise Porphyria’s family. As she is an upper class woman in the 1860’s, it would not have been allowed by her family for her to become in any way romantically attached to someone of an inferior position in social rank. However the Lover has it in mind that she is too weak to leave her family. He wants her to be confined to his structured code and for her to do whatever he expects of her. This portrays to us how jealous and domineering his character is.
It is also obvious that the lover does not plan ahead. Even if Porphyria wanted to leave her family it would be impossible for her to set up any sort of life with a man of no high social rank at all. There is also the constraint of the expectations on an upper class woman. This is further evident at the end of the poem where the Duke has not thought beyond what will happen when the family find out about the murder. This serves as a contrast to the Duke who has killed his wife with another wife in mind. The Duke has an exact purpose for the assassination of his wife and has, unlike the Lover, thought beyond the killing itself.
The Duke is also a possessive character. He clearly wants to have more control over his wife and is unsatisfied with her behaviour and how ‘her looks went everywhere’. In his opinion the Duchess had no business to look at other men however she did anyway. This led the Duke to be controlling over her even after her death;
‘(since none puts by
The curtain I have drawn for you, but I)’
The Duke is possessive out of jealousy. He considers that the wife of a Duke should behave in a fitting manner and act just as a duchess should. She is the property of him and be supremely devoted to him and only him. This type of possessiveness is based purely on the fact that she is his wife. Whoever he had as a wife he would be jealous and domineering towards. This serves as a contrast to ‘Porphyria’s lover’ where the prime reason for the Lovers possessiveness stems from his love of her. He can’t comprehend being without her and is jealous that she can be with her family but yet not with him.
