Porphyria’s lover is emphasising that at this moment in time Porphyria is his. The repetition emphasis the possessiveness. Porphyria might have another lover and is too weak to break from him. From the few clues we are given, Porphyria’s other lover maybe more good lucking or even wealthier. In Victorian times it was unusual for women to have more power than men.
‘From pride, and vainer ties dissever’
And so her lover is emphasising that at this moment she is his. He is worried she might go back to her other lover and so wants to preserve the moment so kills her.
‘.. I found
A thing to do, and all her hair
In one long yellow string I wound
… And strangled her.’
He tries to justify his actions later showing no guilt or regret.
‘I am quite sure she felt no pain’
The narrator thought he bought about calm and beauty for both of them by killing Porphyria.
The poem shows romantic love with the romantic setting – alone in a cottage with a lit fire. There is physical love as Porphyria bears her shoulders and tries to seduce him. There is also unrequited love because Porphyria’s lover is worried she might go to her other lover.
However the most common type of love Browning has used in this poem is obsessive. The lover is self obsessed and wants her all to him. The only way he can do this is by killing her and preserving her.
At the end of the poem, the lover shows no remorse and selfishness condemns him.
‘And all night long we have not stirred,
And yet God has not said a word!’
He thinks he has not done anything wrong and if God were to punish him, he would have done by now.
The poem is a single stanza in a solid block like ‘My Last Duchess’ showing the events happening all at once and at the same time.
In ‘Porphyria’s Lover’ there is a conjunction (But) at line 26 which splits the poem about. The first 25 lines give a description of admiration for Porphyria but then after the conjunction he reveals his love for her.
‘But passion sometimes would prevail.’
In ‘My Last Duchess’ there is a rhyming pattern – rhyming couplets which is there for the lack of depth of feeling. However in ‘Porphyria’s Lover’ there is no rhyming pattern and it is not so mechanical. This shows the madness concealed within the speaker’s mind.
The majority of the words are monosyllabic which adds mood to the poem. Words that are polysyllabic are quite and unassuming and does not break the tension.
‘My Last Duchess’ is another dramatic monologue written by Browning. The poem tells the story of Duke, who is looking at a painting of his dead duchess, who was very flirtatious with other men and how it reveals, his feelings towards her. At the beginning of the poem, the Duke of Ferrara is showing a portrait of his latest wife to the Count’s emissary.
‘That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall,
Looking as if she were alive.’
From the Duke’s first words we are immediately told that the Duchess is dead. There is also a sense of possessiveness like in ‘Porphyria’s Lover with the word ‘my’. The painting of the wife shows her as a possession and the Duke feels no sense of remorse towards her.
In ‘Porphyria’s Lover’ the lover shows strong feelings towards her and wants to preserve her forever but in ‘My Last Duchess’, the Duke is cold and shows a failure to understand his wife’s character.
When the Duke married the Duchess he gave her his nine hundred year old name, for her love and respect, which she isn't giving him.
‘My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name.’
She is not giving him everything he expects. He wants love and intimacy from her which is not given.
‘Pleasant, Pleasant to everyone.’
In ‘Porphyria’s Lover the word worshipped’ is important because Porphyria gave the lover what he wanted and the lover knew this.’
The Duke killed the Duchess because she is very flirtatious and does not give him the respect he wants and so kills her because it is the only way he can control her.
‘.. I gave commands;
Then all smiles stopped together.’
Throughout the course of the poem we have no clue what the Duchess was really like. We are told about her through the Duke’s own word and he describes her as tainted with jealousy and dislike. By having her painted he effectively trapped her for himself. And she is now a trophy for him to look at and finally he can control her. He killed her out of spite whereas in ‘Porphyria’s Lover’ it is the complete contrast. The lover talks about having strong feelings for Porphyria and kills her because he wanted to preserve her forever and did not want to let her go.
‘Porphyria worshipped me.’
‘And strangled her. No pain felt she.’
The Duke is cold and pleasant but has made the Duchess live forever in a painting. He has made her a trophy not that he particularly wants her. In ‘Porphyria’s lover’, he stopped anyone else from loving her by killing her and preserving her.
In both poems, there are similarities in the narrator’s attitudes towards their women. Both narrators show an unnatural possessiveness towards them. As a result both men kill their lovers because jealousy and possessiveness took control of them.
The Duke uses irony in line 46 to hide his true feelings and the true meaning.
‘There she stands
As if alive. Will’t please you rise?’
The Duke also tries to justify his actions like the lover in ‘Porphyria’s Lover’. He thinks his wife did not deserve her position as Duchess even though he gave her everything and in return she didn’t give him anything back.
The Duke does not show any sorrow or compassion towards the Duchess. He seems to be a woman collector like the way he collects paintings. He admires art more than living things.
‘That piece a wonder, now:’
He has his eyes set on another woman who he plans to marry (adding to his collection of women).
‘The Count your master’s known munificence.’
He also mentions ‘Notice Neptune, though, taming a sea horse.’ The Duke is describing himself as Neptune who is God of the Sea and that he is powerful and can tame his woman easily.
The Duke never reveals his feelings throughout the poem. He mocked the Duchess for trying to ridicule in simple things she took pleasure in.
‘The bough of cherries some officious fool
Broke in the orchard for herm the white mule.’
He never opened upto his wife because he though that would stooping lower than her level and he had his status to consider.
‘E’en then would be some stooping and I choose
Never to stoop.’
The quote shows how self centered and egotistic the Duke is.
Both poems describe the behaviour of people who are in love showing what measures they would take to preserve their lovers.
The relationships the characters themselves had with their fictional lovers were completely different. Although Porphyria's lover kills her, there is still a tenderness and emotion shown from the lover in ‘Porphyria’s Lover which is not shown in 'My Last Duchess'. The lover seems capable of more emotion than the Duke. It was the lover who sat in the cold cottage in the dreary weather, and 'listened with heart fit to break' for Porphyria's return. Whereas the Duke only has the faded memory of his anger and jealousy towards the Duchess. The poem does not serve as a picture of the Dukes emotions. He is just mocking his last wife to the emissary.
Throughout the poems irony, rhetorical questions and Euphemisms are used which soften the truth by putting it in an indirect way. For example in Porphyria’s Lover:
‘A thing to do, and all her hair.’
In both poems the main theme is obsessive love which leads to the murders of both lovers.
