‘My last Duchess’ is tolled by the Duke, we learn about the Duchess from only his descriptions of her and her actions. The Duke is very possessive of her as we come to learn that he later kills the Duchess, as he did not trust her because she smiled at other men. He is also a selfish man, firstly as he killed her so no other man could have her but also because after her death he wants to get her money and possibly killed her for her dowry, ‘Of mine for dowry will be disallowed’. There is also suggestion that he is collecting dowries from a succession of wives. The Duke although he did not really care or love the Duchess still wanted her for himself, which is why he had her killed. He believed the Duchess to be too forward, or flirtatious with other men, ‘She thanked men - good!’ to whom she ‘smiled’ and he did not like this. The Duchess seems to have a very happy nature, she wanted more freedom than the Duke allowed her, and she was fascinated by the natural world, ‘The dropping of the daylight in the West’. She was also susceptible to flattery, ‘And, last, she sat down by my side’.
The Duke is very materialistic, ‘Notice Neptune, though, taming a sea horse, thought a rarity’. He can also be considered as a pompous character, ‘E’en then would be some stooping’. The Duke uses formal language, although sometimes it may be in a cold manner, ‘Will’t please you sit and look at her?’, the Duke also spoke of the Duchess as if she were an object or a painting on his wall, in a way, part of his collection, ‘That’s my last duchess painted on the wall’.
His speech is very skilled by is at times self-deprecating, using techniques like fake modesty, ‘Even had you skill in speech - (which I have not)’.
The Lover in Porphyria’s Lover seems similar in the ways of being just as possessive and maybe more obsessive. However, the lover is very much in love with Porphyria and this is why he takes her life, as he killed her with her own hair when she tolled him that she loved him, ‘that moment she was mine, mine’. The fact that he was so overwhelmed and in love with her is shown by him killing her to save that moment and her love for him. Also, the man feels no guilt, he feels what he did is perfectly fine because God had not spoken against him, ‘and God has not said a word’.
In the story, Porphyria is not sure or is not fully in love with her lover, but we learn that she had come to him and tolled him that she was now in love with her; he was then so happy that he killed her so that her feelings could not change. Porphyria must have had other relationships with other richer men, which must have kept her from loving her lover fully.
The atmosphere in both of the dramatic monologues are different, the Duke lives in a stately home, as we are tolled of all the pictures on all the walls, the orchard, the terrace, the painting of the Duchess behind the curtain etc, whereas the lover in Porphyria’s lover lives in a wood in a cottage, he is poor and the Duke is rich but we learn that the poor man is the one who is in fact in love with his partner out of the two. The atmosphere in both is dramatic as they are set out to be, but both have different feelings to them.
‘My Last Duchess’ is dramatic but is more subtle and works with the inference and suggestion, making the reader wonder about things, such as how she was killed, what she was really like and what she looked like whereas in ‘Porphyria’s lover’ we do actually meet her, we know how she was killed, there is a very vivid, detailed and descriptive description of her death, ‘In one yellow string I wound three times her little throat around, and strangled her. No pain felt she’, even after killing her he feels no guilt and even thinks that she felt no pain, he most likely thought this so that he would not feel guilt.
Both poems are in single stanza, this gives a more continuous feel to both of the poems, this way it feels more narrative, as it is a dramatic monologue. ‘My Last Duchess’, uses rhyming couplets, a rhyming pattern of AA, BB, with five syllables in each line and iambic pentameter (five beats in a line), whereas the second poem, ‘Porphyria’s Lover’, uses a rhyming pattern on A, B, A, B, B, which is very different with a iambic tetrameter rhythm. He uses different patterns to suit the poems and their moods.
The language in both is archaic, ‘Nor could to-nights gay feast restrain’. The use of vivid descriptions in Porphyria’s Lover, for example, when her lover is killing her is very effective and hard hitting, I feel this use of strong description is very good, it brings out the lovers true feelings and his act although selfish goes by without any guilt felt by him. Both poems use metaphors and similes, ‘and there she stands as if alive’.
I find Porphyria’s Lover to be the most affective out of the two poems, however My Last Duchess is still a very good poem and an effective dramatic monologue but not as descriptive or moving or even shocking as Porphyria’s Lover, which I feel is much more vivid with descriptions and is more in tense in comparison with ‘My Last Duchess’.
