Life is full of love and hate. Love is widely considered the beautiful side of life, while hate is thought of as the ugly side. With this popular view on love, people might not realize the evil it can imbed in those who experience it. Robert Browning’s poems “My Last Duchess” and “Porphyria’s Lover” both depict how the speakers commit terrible acts when their possessive and obsessive love towards their women becomes too strong. The speakers of the poems both kill their lovers as they share a great desire to completely control the women and they both feel no guilt after the deed is done. However, the “love” they feel for the women is completely unalike.
In “Porphyria’s Lover”, the speaker desires control over Porphyria. He admits that Porphyria is not, and will never be, completely devoted to him: 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. (22-25) …show more content…
The speaker wants her to leave behind her social class and other relationships to be with him. The speaker shows his possessive and controlling mentality when he says, “That moment she was mine, mine, fair,” (36). He is convinced that Porphyria is, or should be, his and his alone. By continuously sneaking back to see him she reveals that she is not planning on giving up her primary lifestyle anytime soon, thus proving that she is not under his control. In the same manner, the Duke in “My Last Duchess” also craves control over his wife. The Duke discloses that, “She had / A heart—how shall I say?—too soon made glad,” (22). He deems his wife as too free spirited and friendly with other men, which he takes as her disobeyment of him as her husband/ruler. Furthermore, he believes she is not naturally so
In “Porphyria’s Lover”, the speaker desires control over Porphyria. He admits that Porphyria is not, and will never be, completely devoted to him: 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. (22-25) …show more content…
The speaker wants her to leave behind her social class and other relationships to be with him. The speaker shows his possessive and controlling mentality when he says, “That moment she was mine, mine, fair,” (36). He is convinced that Porphyria is, or should be, his and his alone. By continuously sneaking back to see him she reveals that she is not planning on giving up her primary lifestyle anytime soon, thus proving that she is not under his control. In the same manner, the Duke in “My Last Duchess” also craves control over his wife. The Duke discloses that, “She had / A heart—how shall I say?—too soon made glad,” (22). He deems his wife as too free spirited and friendly with other men, which he takes as her disobeyment of him as her husband/ruler. Furthermore, he believes she is not naturally so