Essay of Robert Browning: "My Last Duchess" and "Porphyria's Lover"

Robert Browning’s Theme

Robert Browning is known as one of the best Victorian era poets despite his many years being a playwright. The two poems, “My Last Duchess” and “Porphyria’s Lover” are dramatic monologues. Dramatic monologues are when a speaker speaks to a silent listener about an important experience in his/her life. Robert Browning developed his art of dramatic monologues from his many years of writing plays. They say these two poems are the best of Robert Browning’s career. These were the poems that everyone read and were very fond of in the Victorian era. The main theme in Robert Browning’s poetry is jealousy.

For instance, in Robert Browning’s poem, “My Last Duchess”, in which a duke killed his former wife because she was cheating on him with a count, shows jealousy. “Whene’er I passed her; but who passed without much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands; then all smiles stopped together” (Browning 856). These are the words of the duke who says that she was smiling at the count and he was smiling back then he had to give order to kill her out of jealousy (Browning 856). The duke is a very egotistic man who said “I chose to never stoop” (Browning 856). When he says this he means that he won’t just keep letting this women push him around and cheat on him so he chose not to stoop and put her to death. This man is a man who can jealous easily and he inferred by their smiles at each other that they were automatically sleeping together and immediately had her killed. The poem never exactly stated that the two were sleeping together but the duke obviously thought so when he gave his order that he bragged about. This duke is so cocky and arrogant that he is bragging about killing this woman to the count’s agent. The count is the man that she was suspected to be cheating with. Then here is this duke who doesn’t care because he is so sure of himself that he can brag about killing a man’s lover to a man who works for the count. This poem is loosely based on the life of Alfonso I, the duke of Ferrara, and it has some of his direct quotes in it from that time. Some listeners said most of what is said in this poem was either said or written in letters by the duke.

Also, the poem “Porphyria’s Lover” written by Robert Browning has themes of jealousy in it. “That moment she was mine” (Browning 858). This is said because sometimes she is another man’s. This woman has just left a party where she was with other men and now trekked through the wind and rain to be with the man she claims to love. But, she had no idea that this man was plotting to make her love his forever. “And thus we sit together now, and all night long we have not stirred” (Browning 858). This was his way of keeping her from other men. He was so jealous that he decided to kill her so he could sit with her and not worry about her stirring to go to be with other men. He says that he debated before he killed her whether or not to, then he takes her hair and wraps it around her neck and strangles her with it (Browning 858). This man was so desperate for this woman love to only be with him and so jealous of the other men she was with that her decided to make her his permanently by killing her at that very moment.

However, the theme of these poems by Robert Browning is opinion, and there are some critics who have different opinions of the theme of these poems. Also, there are critics who share the opinion of jealousy as the theme for these two Robert Browning poems. An essay by Lois A. Marchino shares the opinion of the theme of “My Last Duchess”. Lois A. Marchino even uses the some of the same citations as previously stated in this essay. For example “She should have known better, he says, and ‘I choose/ Never to stoop.’” (Marchino). This reinforces the fact that the theme of “My Last Duchess” is in fact jealousy. It can be very wrong if on person writes it, but if another writes about the same thing and uses the same quotations then it is that more likely to be true. Also, when part one of this essay was being written, there was no knowledge that Marchino’s essay had been written so the idea was not stolen. “The final characterization the duke gives of his former duchess reveals his obsessive possessiveness and jealousy. He acknowledges that she smiled when she saw him, but complains that she gave much the same smile to anyone else she saw. His next statement reveals that he caused her to be killed: ‘I gave commands;/ Then all smiles stopped together.’” (Marchino).

This statement implies that the Duke was very jealous because of the smiles his duchess would give to people. She had argued that she gives the same smile to everyone but that did not sway this duke. This Duchess’s argument was probably true, because she did walk the streets smiling at everyone but jealousy clouded this duke’s mind. He then gave orders to have her killed without even thinking that the smile that she gave to that painter was the same smile she gave to everyone else. The painter in question is the man who painted the painting of the duchess that the duke is showing off in the beginning of the poem.

Furthermore, there are also some critics who agree that the theme of “Porphyria’s Lover” is jealousy. “Browning shows how apparently reasoned justification is founded on misprision, on fantasy, jealousy, fear, and aggression.” (Maxwell). This is what Catherine Maxwell writes in one of her essays about “Porphyria’s Lover” in her essay she does not state that the theme of “Porphyria’s Lover” is jealousy, but she does mention it and it sounds like she is saying that jealousy maybe a reoccurring theme in Robert Browning’s works. “Browning's insane speaker in "Porphyria's Lover" strangles his lover either out of jealousy or insanity.” (Devi). In this excerpt, Gayatri Devi writes that the reason that Porphyria is being strangled in “Porphyria’s Lover” is because her lover is jealous. Lest one forget that this is a woman that has had many lovers and a man has good reason to be jealous. This man was insane with love for this woman and when the were sitting together cuddling or whatever it may be called, he was so in love that he had to kill her to insure that she could only be with him for the rest of her life. The rest of her life of course was only about five minutes long because she was being strangled and the lack of oxygen to the brain would only let her live about five more minutes, if even that long. This man was so insane and jealous of all the other men and also so in love with her that he probably watched her die while either kissing her or staring into her eyes which where filled with terror and a question of “Why are you doing this to me, I thought you loved me?” There are not very many reasons to kill the woman you love but jealousy is probably top on list. Robert Browning was very jealous in his own life that is why he wrote so romantically of killing because of jealousy because he couldn’t kill but he could write about killing.

In conclusion, Robert Browning main theme in these two poems, “My Last Duchess” and “Porphyria’s Lover”, is jealousy. The main examples were previously stated in this essay. Robert Browning made it very clear through the actions of the narrators of his poems that they killed their lovers/wives because of jealousy. In “Porphyria’s Lover” the man had killed his lover because of the fear and jealousy of her being with another man. Also, Robert Browning gave a few hints in this poem that this man may have been somewhat insane. In the other poem, “My Last Duchess”, the duke killed his duchess because she had smiled in a way that led to the suspicion of her having an affair with a certain painter. This was the painter that painted the painting that was being discussed in the beginning of the poem. This man was very jealous of everyone that his wife smiled at and had her put to death despite her countless arguments. Robert Browning’s moral of his poems and the point he was trying to get across is that he doesn’t take to unfaithfulness very well, in fact he hates it.

Works Cited
Applebee, Arthur N., and Andrea B. Bermudez. The Language of Literature. Evanston, Illinois:
McDougal Littell, 2006. 855-856.

- - -. The Language of Literature. Evanston, Illinois: McDougal Littell, 2006. 857-858.

Devi, Gayatri. "Literary Contexts in Poetry: Robert Browning's 'Porphyria's Lover.'" Nov.-Dec. 2006.
Literary Reference Center. EBSCO. 16 Jan. 2008 .

Marchino, Lois A. "My Last Duchess." 2002. Literary Reference Center. EBSCOhost. 21 Jan. 2008
.

Maxwell, Catherine. "Browning's Porphyria's Lover." 25 June 2002. Literary Reference Center. EBSCOhost.
21 Jan. 2008 http://web.ebscohost.com/lrc/