While reading “Porphyria’s Lover” the main theme’s that stood out most in the poem was love and possession. Also, an important part of this theme was the effects love might have on people such as fear, joy, pride, vanity and obsession as demonstrated by the speaker. Robert Browning uses elements of poetry such as the speaker, rhyme scheme, and rhythm to accentuate the theme in the poem. While reading “My Last Duchess” the main theme that stood out most was possession. The first sentence tells us that the painting is of his former wife who is now deceased. The sense of possession and control over the poem is extremely prominent in the first few lines. The person he is talking to is either not given the chance to speak or is ignored by the speaker. He gives the person he is speaking to the impression that he is completely in control with the continued use of the word “I”. Also throughout the poem the duke speaks of his willingness to have full control of what the duchess does or says. This possession resulted in the duke appointing someone to murder the duchess but there is no proof of how she died.
Both “Porphyria’s Lover” and “My Last Duchess” are presented in a very much common poem arrangement. Both poems are presented in a sort of first person view.
The setting and atmosphere in “Porphyria’s Lover” is in the narrator’s home. It includes surroundings of a lake outside. Inside there are a few chairs and a fire set. In “My Last Duchess” it is set in the 19th century in a quiet house. The juke and the count’s servant are arranging a marriage for the duke and the count’s daughter. They are in the duke’s gallery containing paintings and statues. The duchess’s painting is kept behind a curtain and no one is allowed to open the curtain except him, which shows how much he wanted to control her, the following shows us this “since none puts by the curtain I have drawn for you, but I.”
The rhyme scheme in “My Last Duchess” doesn’t really rhyme when read aloud but if you look carefully the rhyme scheme goes a, a, b, b, c. The rhyme scheme in “Porphyria’s Lover” is very different to the rhyme scheme in “My Last Duchess”. It goes a, b, a, b, a, b.
Overall I feel that both poems do fit well into the genre of a dramatic monologue. “My Last Duchess” includes a listener and the duke reveals his personality through what he says. In “Porphyria’s Lover” it doesn’t include a listener accept us the readers. The man having an affair with porphyria also fits in with the genre of dramatic monologue. Are the men going to regain their possessive status or will the rights change into equal?
