Compare Browning's portrayal of the men and their relationships in 'My Last Duchess'and 'Porphyria's Lover'

Compare Browning's portrayal of the men and

their relationships in 'My Last Duchess'

and 'Porphyria's Lover'

Robert Browning's poems 'Porphyria's Lover' and 'My Last Duchess' are both written in the form of dramatic monologues. This is when one speaker tells the poem to either a real audience or an implied audience. This means the poem is from one perspective and shows how the men want to mould the women into their own perceptions of how they should behave. 'Porphyria's Lover' is told to an implied audience whereas the duke in 'My Last Duchess' is making his speech to a servant. Browning writes both poems in this form in order to silence the women in the poems, portraying the men as controlling and the women as vulnerable. This silencing of the women portrays how women were treated throughout the Victorian period. Women rarely had a strong voice to air their opinions, especially in marriage.

Both poems have a definite rhyme scheme. 'Porphyria's Lover' has an ABABB rhyme scheme. This emphasises the desire of the lover narrating the poem to be with Porphyria. The A rhymes want to be together, however the B rhymes are sending them apart. The lines of the poem with B rhymes are also indented emphasising how they are being driven apart mainly by the difference in the couple's social status but also by how they are not married. However, in 'My Last Duchess' the rhyme scheme is AABB, so the lines are rhyming couplets. The duke has stamped his control on his wife and there is a sense of togetherness. The rhythm in 'Porphyria's Lover' is iambic tetrameter whereas in 'My Last Duchess' it is iambic pentameter. This makes the poem like polished and controlled conversational speech, to emphasise how many times the duke has made the speech. It also enhances the irony of 'Even had you skill/ In speech- (which I have not)'. The rhythm shows the authority the duke has, because he controls his speech, therefore we can't trust everything he says.

The women are very sexual and promiscuous in Browning's poems. Many people notice the duchess's sexual glance in the painting. The Duke is disgusted by Frà Pandolf, the painter's, comments on the duchess's beauty: 'Paint/Must never hope to reproduce the faint/Half-flush that dies along her throat'. The duke's contempt for the painter is shown when he says 'such stuff' and his diction changes. These flattering comments about the duchess make the duke extremely paranoid. Even the painter, who is a monk, makes lustful comments about her beauty. However, the duke was not present when the painting was produced, therefore it is just his paranoia. The duke dislikes the fact that his wife finds contentment in things other than him: 'she liked whate'er/ She looked on, and her looks went everywhere.' The enjambment here accentuates the duchess's eyes following other men. The duke says that the duchess saw his love for her as no more important than 'The bough of cherries' from 'some officious fool'. The 'f' sound in 'officious fool' makes the duke's words sound hard and accusing. In 'Porphyria's Lover' the description of Porphyria's 'yellow hair' and 'white shoulder' is very angelic and virginal. However, Porphyria is doing the opposite, acting flirtatious. She 'withdrew', 'laid' and 'untied' her clothing.

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There is definitely a theme of social status, which runs throughout both poems. In 'Porphyria's Lover' we get the impression that Porphyria is higher than her lover in the social hierarchy because she attends a 'gay feast' whereas her lover lives in a cottage. The lover pines for Porphyria and this is shown by the effect of the pathetic fallacy. The unpleasant images of the weather at the beginning of the poem are used to portray the lover's feelings. He is like the 'sullen wind'- spiteful and angry because Porphyria is not with him and also because it is Porphyria's decision whether the two meet. Porphyria is literally higher than her lover in the poem, with her lover having to 'look up at her eyes'. Porphyria has to stoop in order for her lover to allow his 'cheek to lie there'. This 'stooping' is emphasised with commas placed around the word, showing how the lover resents it. In 'My Last Duchess', however, it is the duke who sees himself as superior to his wife. He vows 'Never to stoop'. The duke does not want to damage his pride by telling his wife how to behave. His statement is emphasised with a change in rhythm to prove his point. The first foot of this line is a trochee whereas the rest follows the normal pattern of iambic pentameter. He also says that his wife 'ranked/My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name/ With anybody's gift.' The duke doesn't think that his wife appreciated her title as a duchess.

Browning's poems both end with the death of the women, due to the struggle over power between the couples. In 'Porphyria's Lover', the anonymous lover wants Porphyria's attention, however he does not get any: 'And laid her soiled gloves by, untied/Her hat and let the damp hair fall'. The monotonous list of Porphyria's actions, emphasised with the use of enjambment, the lack of end-stops and the repetition of 'and', irritates the lover. The lover sulks when she 'called me'. There is a caesura, which represents the silence when he does not answer her. She does give him attention later on, trying to get him out of his mood. Porphyria is too proud to love her lover because she is from a different social background: 'Too weak, for all her heart's endeavour,/To set its struggling passion free'. He loves her but she does not recognise his love. Porphyria treats her lover like a puppet, by making him do things: 'She put my arm about her waist'. Her lover resents this difference between them. However later there is a switch in power and the rhythm changes to illustrate this: 'at last I knew/ Porphyria worshipped me'. When he finally receives some of her attention, he wants to preserve the moment forever: 'That moment she was mine, mine, fair'. The last foot of the line is a spondee. This makes the sound heavy and illustrates the lover's power. The lover describes how he kills Porphyria. 'In one long yellow string I wound/ Three times her little throat around'. The enjambment gives the sense of him winding her hair around her neck. He kills her with one of her sexual tools and one of the objects she uses to assert her power over him. The lover does not mention the struggling during Porphyria's death. The whole death is confined to one caesura: 'And strangled her.' He describes her death poetically: 'As a shut bud that holds a bee'. This image shows how Porphyria cannot sting her lover anymore, therefore is unthreatening. The lover twists everything linked with Porphyria's death: 'Laughed the blue eyes' and her cheek 'Blushed bright'. He uses active, lifelike images even though she is dead. In 'My last Duchess' the duke's jealousy is apparent when the duchess bestows her smiles anywhere else other than upon the duke himself. The duke is very controlling when telling the story to an audience, however he cannot control his wife and who she graces with her affectionate smiles. He does not want to tell her how to behave because then his wife would have power over him. Browning uses a tricolon crescendo to show the build-up in the duke's anger: 'This grew; I gave commands;/ Then all smiles stopped together.' This is the implication that the duke killed the duchess.

Both women are objectified in the poems. The duke preserves his wife's beauty in the painting. However, he now controls whom she bestows her affection upon because he places the painting behind a curtain. It can only be appreciated from a distance. The duke uses the curtain to exhibit his power. We see the duke's arrogance. He takes no more interest in his wife than he does a piece of artwork. He draws the servant's attention to a statue of Neptune, the god of the sea. He admires Neptune's power in 'Taming a sea-horse'. The duke wants to be powerful like Neptune and be able to tame wild and natural beauty. In 'Porphyria's Lover', the lover gives Porphyria a kiss to control her passion: 'her cheek once more/ Blushed bright beneath my burning kiss'. The alliteration of 'b' gives the statement strong emotions. Neither man likes to think his woman is passionate and independent when not in his company. So they manipulate women in extreme ways, by killing them, and turn them into something that isn't offensive to their pride and doesn't challenge their masculinity.

The men narrate both poems. The duke's speech is like a theatrical performance. He has total control and orders the audience around: 'Will't please you sit and look at her?' It is also like a show because of the curtain. The duke is like a puppet master. In 'Porphyria's Lover' the poem is more like a story, with the weather setting the scene.

In 'Porphyria's Lover' there is no sense for the future. The last thing we see is the couple together at last. The last two lines are a rhyming couplet. We see the shift in power. 'Only, this time my shoulder bore/ Her head'. This makes Porphyria sound like a doting, subservient woman. However, the two didn't expect to be together in death: 'she guessed not how/ Her darling one wish would be heard.' In death, Porphyria has swapped her scorn for her lover's low position for his love. The lover feels no guilt: 'And yet God has not said a word!' He has not been judged by God and therefore thinks he has done the right thing. Her lover preserves the moment and is fixated on it. He does not think of the consequences. In 'My Last Duchess', the duke is in search of a new wife. The duke is confident he will receive a generous dowry from his new wife. He does not tell the new duchess how to behave but he tells the story of his last duchess to his future wife's servant, so that he can warn her. The repetition of the 'c' sound in 'Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze' creates a trapped feeling for the duke's new wife. There is a sense for the future, however it is not hopeful for the wife.

These two poems show how two men deal with similar situations comparably. The poems are not very realistic because Browning has used extreme examples to show how men controlled women in Victorian times, but I think Browning wrote these poems in this way to show that it is ridiculous to try and control everything women do.

Jordanne Young