‘To weak, for all her heart’s endeavour to set its
struggling passion free’.
Porphyria’s lover is the only other character in this poem. He is the opposite of Porphyria because when Porphyria arrived she was full of life and vitality whereas her lover is miserable, cheerless and is sulking, he is reliant on her to improve his mood ‘cheerless grate’. He does not admit to being miserable but it is obvious from how he describes the weather.
‘The sullen wind was soon awake, it tore the
elm-tops down for spite and did its worst to
vex the lake’.
Her lover is angry, jealous, manipulative and resentful of her other life. He is vexed by Porphyria because she will not do what he wants her to do and leave her husband and her wealth for him.
‘She too weak for all her heart’s endeavour
to set its struggling passion free from pride
and vainer ties dissever and give herself to
me forever’.
His love for Porphyria is not real love but obsession, he shows his obsession by the use of the pronouns ‘I’ and ‘me. He wants to own Porphyria and have her to himself.
‘That moment she was mine, mine, fair,
perfectly pure and good’.
Porphyria makes him feel special ‘like a God’. He thinks Porphyria adores him ‘Porphyria worships me’. In the end when he kills Porphyria he shows his madness he thinks he has given Porphyria ‘her darling wish’ and that God approves of what he has done ‘And yet God has not said a word!’. He is mad but also calculated ‘while I debated what to do’. He gives justification to why he killed her.
‘The smiling rosy little head, so glad it had
its utmost will’.
There are various poetic techniques used throughout the poem Porphyria’s lover. The poem is written in the form of a dramatic monologue. This gives us the lover’s perspective on the events that are taking place. We hear his views and ideas. The poem allows him to reveal his thoughts and justifications. The murder is told through his eyes and from his point of view. The lover is talking directly to the reader. The poem is written in octosyllabic lines, lines of eight syllables or beats. Browning uses the rhyming scheme ababb in this poem. The poem has breaks or pauses in the middle of a line of verse theses breaks and pauses are identified by the use of commas. In the first few lines of the poems Robert Browning uses personification of the weather outside and personification of the grate to describe the lover’s mood. The author also uses cold and matter of fact language to symbolize the lover’s madness. The poem is dramatic, exciting, vivid and interesting. The lover’s views and his cold attitude to murder make the poem frightening.
The wickedness and madness in the poem are shown through the lover’s actions and words, like when he says ‘while I debated what to do’. He also shows his madness when he decides to strangle Porphyria with her own hair and thinks this is want she wanted him to do.
‘And strangled her. No pain felt she; I am
quite sure she felt no pain’.
‘Blushed bright beneath my burning kiss’, this quote shows that he thought that she was blushing because he had kissed her but she is red because she is gasping for air again this shows his madness. His madness is showed when after he has killed her he sits with her and puts her head on his shoulder, he is saving the moment. The lover’s wickedness is shown because after he has coldly killed her he shows no remorse or regret.
The second poem is My Last Duchess which was one of Browning’s first monologues. In this poem the Duke is telling a story to one of his guests at a party. They are walking around the Duke’s house looking at pictures and in particular the picture of the Duke’s last wife who has died. The Duke is speaking in the poem and through what he says and how he says it we gain an impression of him also through him we learn about his wife, the last Duchess. We learn a great deal about the Duke’s character by hearing how he thought and felt about his wife. The Duke is manipulative, devious, cold, and filled with family pride,
‘My gift of a nine-hundred-year-old name
with anybody’s gift’.
He was a cold man and was very stern.
‘And seemed as they would ask me,
if they durst’.
He was a very jealous man and had little time for his wife, he never told her what he thought or felt, like when he thought she was having an affair with the artist he never confronted her about it.
‘Sir,‘t was not her husband’s presence only,
called that spot of joy on the Duchess’ cheek’.
The Duke thought he was important and that he was superior to other people.
‘E’en then would be some stooping; and I
choose never to stoop.’
He thought his wife was below him, ‘who stoop to blame’. He had already been married before he married his last wife; he did not love her and is only remarrying again for money not for love. He was a very clever man and worried a lot about money. He is a very cold and chilling character, he never admits to killing his wife but he gives that impression when he says ‘I gave commands then all similes stopped together’. At the end of the poem we see that the Duke values material items not people, he has no real feelings and wants to impress people by his belongings. He classes his wives as possessions. He is a man of power and wealth.
The impression we get, from the poem, of the Duchess is the total opposite to the impression of the Duke that we get from the poem. She is friendly, approachable and modest. She is younger than the Duke and is a very pretty woman, ‘the faint half flush that dies along her throat’. She was friendly, approachable and liked by people. She blushed very easily maybe because she was shy or when someone paid her a compliment.
‘Such stuff was courtesy she thought and
cause enough for calling up that spot of
joy’.
She treated everyone equally and with respect, the Duke thought he should be treated specially. She was very easily pleased and impressed; she liked everything that she looked at.
‘Too soon made glad, too easily impressed;
she liked whate’er she looked on.’
She was affectionate, impulsive and had pleasure in living. She was grateful of everything that was given to her and showed her approval of the gift.
‘The bough of cherries some officious fool
broke in the orchard fro her, the white mule
she rode with round the terrace-all and each
would draw from her alike the approving
speech, or blush at least. She thanked men.’
She was always happy and smiling, which angered the Duke he thought that she should only simile at him not everyone else as well.
‘Oh Sir, she smiled, no doubt, whene’er I
passed her; but who passed without much
the same simile?’
The poem My Last Duchess is another example of one of Robert Browning’s dramatic monologues. The art of writing in a dramatic monologue in this poem reveals a character, Duke Ferrara, in what he says and how he says it. The Duke is trying to justify himself in this poem. The poem is written in heroic couplets. It has the rhyming scheme of aabb. Browning uses enjambment to disturb the rhythm and to suggest the internal struggle of the Duke with his emotions. In this poem the Duke’s increasing agitation is revealed in the use of dashes and pauses identified by the use of three dots as he seems to struggle for words.
The Duke’s wickedness is shown mainly towards the end of the poem. He shows no sadness towards the death of his wife and when he talking to the other person about her he only tells him about the things he did not like about her. He never said anything about the good things about her or happy experiences they had together. He implies that he has killed her and shows no remorse or regret for doing so. When he is talking about happened he describes it in a matter of fact way which makes him appear even more of a cold character. He goes from talking about his dead wife to talking about a statue. He is remarrying again after his wife has just died, just for money.
The last poem I am going to write about is called The Laboratory. The speaker is the main character in the poem she is talking to an apothecary. She is a courtesan. She is having a poison made for her lover’s mistress and is watching it being made and enjoying everyone minute of it. She is obsessed with herself. She is a very attractive woman ‘Then go where men wait me’. She is small ‘no minion like me’. She is nasty, bitter, jealous and calculated. She hates her lover and his mistress; she wants her to suffer with him watching so he remembers her like that. She is paranoid ‘while they laugh, laugh at me’. She is insane; she thought she could kill her lover’s mistress by just starring at her.
‘My own eyes to bear on her so, that I
thought could I keep them one half-minute
she would fall shriveled’.
She is deranged, the quotation below shows her enjoyment of watching the poison being made.
‘Ah the brave tree whence such gold
oozings come’.
She is devious, she lets her lover think one thing but she does the opposite.
‘Me fled to the drear empty church, to pray
God in, for them-I am here’.
She has no conscious and is cold ‘poison to poison her’. She is reckless her eagerness to smell the poison ends up killing her. She takes her mask of to smell the poison.
‘Is it done? Take my mask off. Nay, be not
morose’.
The poem is a dramatic monologue which enables the speaker to tell the events from her point of view and we learn about her feelings and thoughts. The first two verses are highly emotional this is represented through the fast pace of the poem. It is also shown through the pauses and the fact that the lines do not flow on from each other. The repition, ‘laugh, laugh at me, at me’, also adds to the high emotions and to the emphasis of the lines. Alliterations ‘brand, burn up, bite’ symbolizes her state of mind and her viciousness. It has the rhyming scheme of abab.
The speaker’s madness and wickedness is shown through her enjoyment of watching the apothecary make the poison and the way she plans how she is going to kill her lover’s mistress. ‘I am not in haste’ this shows her satisfaction in watching the poison being made. She thinks of different ways she can give the poison to her.
‘To carry pure death in an ear-ring, a
casket, a signet, a fan-mount, a filigree
basket’.
Her wickedness is shown when she tells the apothecary that she wants the poison to be attractive so when it is horrible it is more of a shock.
‘The colour’s too grim. Why not soft phial’s,
enticing, dim? Let it brighten her drink, let
her turn it and stir, and try it and taste, ere she
fix and prefer’.
She also shows her wickedness again in the fact that she wants her lover’s mistress to die in pain with him watching her die.
I enjoyed all three of the poems but I especially liked reading and studying The Laboratory because I thought it was interesting the way someone could have such a cold attitude to killing someone and actually be eager to do so. All three poems were written as dramatic monologues and they were all about a lover or husband killing their lover or wife because of stupid reasons. I enjoyed the way the poem was written because you felt like you were actually there and they were speaking to you.
