Compare Contrast Porphyrias Lover and My Last Duchess Essay Example For Students

Compare Contrast Porphyrias Lover and My Last Duchess Essay Robert Browning was writing his poems at the time Queen Victoria was on the throne. He was born in 1812 and died in Venice in 1889. During his life he wrote many poems, two of which were Porphyrias Lover and My Last Duchess. These are the poems we are going to be studying. During Brownings lifetime England was very clearly divided into class systems. If you were born into the working class that is where you would stay all your life, you would only associate with people from your class and you would work for people of the higher classes. If you were born into the higher classes you would not contemplate even talking to someone of a lower class than yourself. Also at this time women had no rights, they had no say in anything to do with politics, and they didnt even have the vote. Women were told who to marry in this time period, usually for money rather than love. This is all very ironic as the monarch at the time was a woman. The two poems we are studying Porphyrias Lover and My Last Duchess reflect the unfairness I have pointed out very effectively and for this reason some of Robert Brownings poetry was frowned upon. An example of this is in Porphyrias Lover. The relationship in it is between a man of a low class and a woman of a higher class which creates massive problems in the relationship and ultimately causes the relationship to break down. The other poem, My Last Duchess, again points out the unfairness of how high class men ruled everything and treated women as disposable possessions. The first poem I am going to analyse is Porphyrias Lover. This is a story of a woman of a high class who is meeting with a man of a much lower class. The whole meeting is told from the mans point of view making the poem a dramatic monologue. The poem starts by describing the mood of the weather outside. It is described as sullen and that it is trying to vex the world outside. This personification is used effectively to reinforce how wild the weather is that night; it also sets a mood of storminess which can refer to the atmosphere inside the cottage. The description of the weather also goes towards making the cottage seem totally isolated. We then see the thoughts of the man for the first time where he says, I listened with heart fit to break which suggests that he has been waiting a long time for something or someone and that is all he has been concentrating on, this also shows that he is worried about what is coming. As soon as this is said the thing he has been waiting for, Porphyria, glides into the cottage. The word glide implies that she is full of grace which is in total contrast to the storm going on outside. He then talks of how she kneels at the fire grate and makes the whole cottage warm. This could mean that she simply lights a fire or it may be that metaphorically just her presence lights up and adds warmth to the whole cottage. Next she proceeds to take off her wet clothes which is described in detail using such words as soiled and dripping to emphasise what she has come through to be at the cottage that night. When she has finished she sits next to the man but it is she that calls to him, it is almost as if the man is nervous and uneasy in her presence. It is even her that must take the mans arm and put it about her waist; she has to make all the moves which must show that there is something troubling the man. Next he lists all the things that she does but the manner in which this is done makes the man seem detached as if his mind is troubled greatly by something. Whatever it is that is troubling the man does not seem to bother the woman because she murmurs to the man that she loves him. The word murmur, with its gentleness suggests that the woman really does love the man. Here the man reveals what it is that is troubling him, he says that though he knows she loves him she will never be able to give herself to him fully as she will never be able to totally break the ties with her class but he goes on to say that even with his fears that passion sometimes would prevail over them. He then goes on to say, For love of her, and all in vain. Here he is saying that although he loves her too he thinks that their relationship could never last but in that moment he also looks into her eyes and realises that she loves him. This makes the man proud, we can see this where it says, Porphyria worshipped me; surprise Made my heart swell, and still it grew The word worshipped implies that he thinks she is madly in love with him and the way that he Browning emphasises the way his heart swells reinforces how proud he feels to be loved by this woman. This feeling seems to take the man back as he doesnt know what to do. He feels that for that moment he owns her, we can see this where it says, That moment she was mine, mine. In this perfect moment he must realise that it cannot stay this way forever although he wants it to so he does what he thinks will mean the moment will last forever and strangles her. He does this in a very detached way, as if he doesnt want to think about it in case he changes his decision. After he kills her he says, No pain felt she; I am quite sure she felt no pain. The way he says this is almost like he is trying to convince himself that she felt no pain and it was the right thing to do, the repetition seems to reinforce that. Comparison of the Poems "Being-in-love" by Roger McGough and "Funeral Blues" by W H Auden EssayHe indeed goes on to list some of the things that would bring this look to her, he says, Sir, twas all one! My favour at her breast, The dropping of daylight in the West, The bough of cherries some officious fool Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule She rode with round the terrace all and each Would draw from her alike the approving speech In this list he puts himself first, as with everything, but he is resentful that a commoner that brings her cherries makes her as happy as him and even a mule is considered equal to himself. He was also bitter that she would thank people of lower classes that did her little favours and as someone of the upper class you were never meant to even acknowledge the lower classes let alone thank them for things they were expected to do anyway. He is bitter because she did not follow the conventions she didnt even rank the gift of his nine-hundred-year-old name as something worth smiling about and this infuriated him. He hates the fact that she is human and he is not, we can see this where he says, Even had you the skill In speech (which I have not) to make your will Quite clear to such an one, and say Just this Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss, Or there exceed the mark This quote shows that he couldnt tell her that she disgusted him because, he says, he does not have the skill with words but I believe it is that he cant articulate his emotions well enough to tell her and we learn a few line later that he would consider it stooping to explain himself to her and he would never stoop lower than his level. He goes on to say, Oh, Sir, she smiled, no doubt, Wheneer I passed her; but who passed without Much the same smile? This is him saying plainly that the fact she treated him as an equal got to him. All this grew and grew until finally he gave the command to have her killed although he does not say this exactly, he says, I gave commands; Then all smiles stopped together. This is him telling someone that he had his ex-wife murdered in the most off-hand way possible, almost like it doesnt matter to him, which it cant if he doesnt mind having her murdered. After he has told this man that he has had the Duchess killed we then find out who this person is, we discover that he is a relative of a woman who is about to marry this Duke. This whole speech could then be interpreted as a warning to this person that if this woman does not act as she should according to the Duke she could go the same way but he goes on to say that although the dowry with this marriage isnt huge he doesnt mind because he believes the new wife is perfect and he wants to have her as his own. As a close to the Dukes speech he points out a statue of Neptune taming a sea horse which could be seen as similar to him taming his wives. These two poems are quite similar over all, for a start they are both dramatic monologues which means that they are both stories told from one persons point of view in this case the Duke and the lower class man. The structure of the poems is quite similar too, the rhyming scheme in them is a little different in Porphyrias Lover the first line rhymes with the third and the second line rhymes with the fourth and fifth and then repeats this pattern whereas in My Last Duchess the scheme very simple, the first line rhymes with the second, then the third with the fourth and so on. The line lengths in both these poems is quite similar too, they have quite short lines although it isnt restricted to a certain number of syllables. These two things show that Browning is quite an ordered person but not obsessively so. The punctuation works the same way in both poems it isnt restrictive at all, it is placed where it is needed so allows both poems to flow. The language used in the poems is representative of the person who we are hearing, for example in Porphyrias Lover the language is simple as the man would not have received much education being in the lower classes but in My Last Duchess the Duke, who would have been well educated, uses more complex language. These two poems would have been frowned upon in the times they were written as they can be interpreted as derogatory to the class system at the time. One of them points out how the classes could not mix and the other one shows how the upper class has total control of those below them and can quite literally get away with murder. I believe that the poem Porphyrias Lover is the more effective of the two. I think this because the rhyming scheme is more effective and the ending is more definite. Also the use of the simile when he compares the womans eyes to A shut bud that holds a bee I think is particularly effective and is my favourite part of both poems. I also think that it makes the problems of the class systems more obvious than My Last Duchess. So in conclusion the poem I think more effective is Porphyrias Lover.