Submitted by: Izhar Ahmad Submitted to: Madam Khadija

Roll no: 18522 Class/Sec: 4 A (Morning)

Assignment: Victorian Poetry Date: 16- June- 2020
Topic: Comparison between Porphyria’s Lover and My Last Duchess

Comparison between My Last Duchess and Porphyria’s Lover: Both the

poems are written in dramatic monologues by Robert Browning which are narrated by
fictional characters Duke of Ferrara and Lover of Porphyria.

Confusion about women nature: In both these poems there lies a sort of confusion
about Duchess and Porphyria. In My Last Duchess, at first the Duchess seems flirtatious kind
of woman but with further reading, she is an affable nature of woman, innocent, humble and
cheerful. While in Porphyria’s Lover, Porphyria seems to have euthanasia as one can
perceive while reading ‘she too weak', ‘felt no pain', ‘laughed the blue eyes without a stain',
but the reality in both poems are different as a little ambiguity appears while reading.

Possessive Nature: In My Last Duchess, the aristocratic duke controls everything. He is

self-obsessed as it appears while repeation of personal pronoun ‘I, my', as ‘My Last
Duchess’, ‘I commanded’. He wants to control his wife, her actions and her life and sees it as
an object of possession to be only mine. He micromanage everything and control everyone as
he says to messenger ‘Nay, we will go together’. Also he provides hint of his control in his
panting of Neptune, the domineering god of sea who taming a monster. The Duke and
Porphyria’s lover are not same in economic terms but similar in their callousness and
possessive nature. Victorian men were obsessed with power and they undermined women
rule. Similarly, Porphyria’s lover sees himself weak by depending on her and her boldness.
He permanently controls her by killing ‘this time my shoulder bore Her head’. He violently
controls her and gained her as possession ‘And I, its love, am gained instead!’.

Restriction of women independence: Women at Victorian society were considered as

angles of the houses, to serve and entertain her husband and were the legal properties of their
husbands. Women were not able to make their own choices because they were considered
incapable of rational nature. Duchess make her own choices to ogling everyone and grateful
for people gifts but her this behaviour was restrained and later confined to an art veiled
behind curtains. Similarly, Porphyria make her own free choices as she attend ‘night’s gay
feast' and came to her lover in a stormy night. This shows her independent self which was
restricted later to her death.

Objectification of love: Both the Duke and lover wanted their love as an object and to
restrained to them. They considered their love as an object as Duke confined his love into art.
His love is just for an ideal image rather than reality. On the other hand, lover unexpectedly
murder her and reduced her to object to be possessed, “the moment she was mine".

Dominant Psychopathic Lovers: In both poems, lovers do not perceive their love
because of their psychological problems and jealousy. Both the Duke and Porphyria’s lover
suspect their lovers. Duke suspected the duchess, even the monk artist Fra Pandolf ‘perhaps
Fra Pandolf chanced to say', he is not even certain. He was also jealous from Duchess
interactions and her cheerful nature towards others. Similarly, Porphyria’s lover style of
poetic inversion portrays his mental imbalance. ‘when glided in Porphyria’ this type of
language depicts his maniac behaviour. He also seems angry as Porphyria comes she shuts
the door, busy in blazing fire, taking off her shawl, and then her hair. ‘And, last, she sat down
by my side’, the word ‘last’ in punctuation Mark’s represent his anger. ‘I am quite sure she
felt no pain', this sentence also supports his psychopathic attitude. He is also jealous of her
social as she will not free herself “from pride and vainer ties dissever, And give herself to me
forever”, and due to his mental imbalance she is subjected to death.

Lawlessness: In both these poems the murderers are unpunished while those who are
innocent deemed guilty and punished and blamed for their own death by their one sided
judgement and perceiving. In Porphyria’s Lovers, the lovers provides justification for his
murder that “No pain felt she; I am quite sure she felt no pain.” From the fear of God law he
says “And yet God has not said a word!”

Objectification with use of language: The duke seems the man of refined language
and manners. He uses charming language to avoid the truth with the choice of words. “I gave
commands; Then all smiles stopped together”. Similarly, Porphyria’s lover uses words like
‘little head’ or ‘little throat' to infantilize her. Furthermore, he also uses refined language for
murder “ In one long yellow string I wound, three times her little throat around, And
strangled her. No pain felt she". After Porphyria’s death she becomes it, the pronoun ‘she’
shifted to ‘it’.