"How Do Browning's Poems "My Last Duchess" And "Porphyria's Lover" Compare And Contrast?

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Essay on “Porphyria’s Lover” and “My Last Duchess”

“How Do Browning’s Poems “My Last Duchess” And “Porphyria’s Lover” Compare And Contrast?

               

             Robert Browning’s two poems “My Last Duchess” And “Porphyria’s Lover” are about two men who kill their partners to own them. “My Last Duchess” is about a Duke who tells us about his wife and her behaviour with other men, on the other hand “Porphyria’s Lover” is about the mind of an abnormally possessive lover. The males take the dominant roles in both poems.

             Both poems compare in many ways, the most obvious comparison is that both poems are about men that kill their partners to own them, in “Porphyria’s Lover” the lover kills his partner to stop him from being lonely and so no other man can have her, he says, “That moment she was mine, mine, fair Perfectly pure and good:” Both of Browning’s poems are also monologues which are written through the male lover’s point of view. The main difference is that in “My Last Duchess” the duke kills his wife indirectly by giving orders, the Duke says, “Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands; Then all smiles stopped together.” This makes the reader feel more a little less shocked, while on the other hand in “Porphyria’s Lover,” the lover kills Porphyria directly which makes the reader a little more shocked, he says, “in one long yellow sting I wound three times her little throat around, and strangled her.”

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               The other main contrast is that in “My Last Duchess” the Duke wanted his wife to respect him and love him but she was like that to other men, so he killed her, it is quoted, “She thanked men, - good! But thanked Somehow - I know not how - as if she ranked My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name With anybody’s gift.” In “Porphyria’s lover” the lover kills Porphria to stop him from being lonely, which was ironic because Porphyria was the only one that stopped the lover from being lonely and ...

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