The other poem shows character even in the title ‘My Last Duchess’ with its possessive pronoun ‘my’. From the repeated use of possessive pronouns ‘my’ and ‘mine’ the reader soon realizes how controlling the Duke is ‘That’s my last duchess painted on the wall’. Even though both the women in the poems loved and cared for both men, they still wound up dead.
In ‘Porphyria’s Lover’ we find the character is also possessive and anxious about his lover when he states that she has ‘vainer ties’. Indicating possibly she is already married or committed in another relationship.
The way the men decide to solve the problems within the relationships seems to lead to the murder of the women with either ‘I strangled her’ or ‘Then all smiles stopped together’.
We see immediately what sort of a character Duke is from his intriguing attitude towards the picture while he explains about his ‘Last Duchess’. He seems to present her as ‘just another object in the room’ as we have already seen with his possessive pronouns however he describes her in great detail and depth. ‘Her mantle laps’ and the ‘Half-flush’ that dies along her throat’ shows his surprising attention to her, of course it seems to be her physical beauty he has observed rather than her inner person.
Porphyria’s Lover’s main character seems to unravel more steadily, beginning with the weather characteristics which have already been stated and moving on to describing Porphyria earlier rather than revealing details about her lover. There are many sensual and rich descriptions about her including ‘’Her smooth white shoulder’ and ‘her yellow hair displaced’ which shows how attractive Porphyria is and helping the reader to see how the lover is jealous of her life when away from him.
Through the words in ‘My last Duchess’ we can tell that the female is a warm and passionate character with his affectionate vocabulary to explain her features before his absent minded murder. ‘The white mule she rode with round the terrace’ really increases the effect of her joyous status though the Duke does not seem to be thoroughly aware of her magnificent character.
In ‘Porphyria’s Lover’ we know that Porphyria is almost presented as a goddess who lights up the cottage with her presence from the words such as ‘glided’ and ‘blaze up’ and phrases like ‘She shut out the cold and storm’. It made me realize that the storm was not in the main character’s mind which was what I thought at first, and that it was actually metaphorically speaking of the great problems with his relationship. In ‘My Last Duchess’ the female’s qualities are mostly observed and appreciated but the death this time is due to the main character’s paranoia, mistrust and obsession.
To conclude my thoughts on these dramatic monologues I had a think to myself what my opinions were on both of the main characters. At first I thought ‘Porphyria's Lover’ had some interesting and truthful points about his desire but then the abrupt change in the poem once he had strangled her put doubt in my mind as to whether he knew what he was doing or if he had done the right thing. His obsession was so great that he could not take the fact Porphyria may have had ‘vainer ties’ when perhaps she did not have any at all. He did not want to face losing her in any way and was deep in thought until he found what he thought was the only solution.
I thought ‘My Last Duchess’s’ main character was far more critical of the woman and had found an irritating factor about her which he used as an excuse to kill the poor Duchess. He had had more wives before that as obviously stated in the title and I began to wonder whether he was just using them to create a better appearance for himself and wondered what had happened to the others. I also found it a shame he had wasted a life he seemed to know so little about. It was as if he just thought about her as a beautiful possession like the other works of art in his home.