"My Last Duchess" and "To His Coy Mistress" Compare the presentation of the men in these two poems.

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“My Last Duchess” and “To His Coy Mistress”

Compare the presentation of the men in these two poems.

The two characters in these two poems have a certain attitude towards women, which is that they both see women as objects but in different ways. The Duke in “My Last Duchess” is an arrogant, disrespectful man, who cares more about status and wealth then love. He is a megalomaniac, who is jealous about his ex-wife not giving only him her attention. The speaker in “To His Coy Mistress” seems like a respectful man, who is articulate, this is important because it is his main strength which he uses to lure her to him. He uses his skill to flatter her, but we then learn that he only wants her for pleasure rather than love; he puts up a false persona of love as another technique to lure her. He is also worried about death and the end of his time. Both these characters are trying to persuade someone. In the Duke’s case, it’s the envoy and in the speaker’s case, the woman. They are also similar because they are talking about a woman, but are different in how they approach this. In addition their wanted outcome is different. Both these men see women as objects, the Duke as an object he can control and look at, and the speaker as a sex object. “My Last Duchess is about a Duke, who is hoping to marry the Count’s daughter, and is with his envoy talking about his ex-wife. “To His Coy Mistress, is about a man, who wants to sleep with a young woman, but is scared that he does not have a lot of time left.

Both the characters aims are the same, but their motivations are different. The Duke is informing the envoy about how he expects his wife to be by talking to him about his ex-wife. This is because he is trying to finalise the deal of marrying the Count’s daughter, and wants to make a good impression, this slips throughout the poem, and he reveals his real self. However this contrasts with the speaker, because he is trying to persuade a woman to sleep with him. His motivation for this is to keep his family name up and to do so before his time is up. The Duke puts on a fake act to try and persuade the envoy. We see this when he says, “That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall, // Looking as if she were alive.” The opening line gives us a false impression that he is a loving husband this is shown because he seems to be remembering her in a sign of respect, but there are still certain areas that show us his real character. His false appearance is let down by the words ‘my last’, which begins to show us his possessive and self-centred character. He also seems more proud of the painting than her; we see this in how he tells us who she is. This is because ‘my’ shows that she was his and ‘last’ seems to show that she was one of many, which shows that he did not really see her as a woman but as his female object that should only obey him. There is also a sense that he prefers her on the wall because now he has control over her. This is further proven when he says, “since none puts by // The curtain I have drawn for you, but I.” Here we see how much of a controller he is because he is the only one who has access to the painting. This though, he says as an aside to himself in order to keep up his false appearance for the envoy, but this shows us his true self. The curtain also shows how he is in control, because he can look at her whenever he wants, and also can choose who he lets see her. There is also a suspicion that arises when he says ‘Looking as if she were alive” which could either be there to make it seem that he misses her, or that something happened that brings back memories of guilt.

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The speaker also puts up a false impression of love and respect to women in order to lure her to sleep with him. We see this when he says “Thy beauty shall no more be found;” he is saying how she won’t be beautiful once she is dead, so why waste that beauty and just sleep with him. Also soon after this sentence, he threatens her with “then worms shall try // That long-preserved virginity:” here, he is saying how if she doesn’t sleep with him she will die. The word “long” emphasis on how precious her virginity is and ...

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Good analysis that is well supported with evidence from the text. Very good on language. When analysing poetry you must also give adequate attention to the analysis of structure and form, including rhythm and rhyme. 4 Stars