Porphyria's Lover And My Last Duchess Comparison Analysis

Robert Browning’s poems, most notably, “Porphyria’s Lover and “My Last Duchess,” are two works that share a common theme. This theme began to arise in the living years of Browning, but has become more prominent in todays world. Both poems exhibit men who are seemingly normal in the beginning but at the end we find are very disturbing. Both men were in a loving relationship with a woman who they presumably killed. Much discussion has come about from these two poems, not because of the blatant murder, but each man’s emotions before and after the murder. The most controversial aspect of both of these poems is the power struggle between the sexes. Strangely both women in both poems have most of the power at the beginnings of the poems and as the poem progresses they do not. They are ‘put in their place’ on the patriarchal ladder. For example in Porphyria’s Lover the woman lays the man’s head on her shoulder and consequently she is killed and her head is placed on his shoulder. Browning exposes a very sick and twisted version of ‘reality’ at the time. The men feel threatened by this behavior of the women and are killed, showing the extremes of such a power dynamic. …show more content…
Each man in each poem is pretty insane. In “Porphyria’s Lover” he’s paranoid, suspicious, and tempered with abnormal behavior. He even describes the storm in the poem like it’s more of a person that tore down and vandalized everything, which brings about a very aggressive nature in the man. The murder’s just reinforce the odd behavior. The Duke in “My Last Duchess” is a little more subtle than in “Prophyrias Lover.” He is in a different situation, looking back on his wife’s murder. His use of modesty and his own contradictions are very different. He is bitter about the way his wife acted even though now a days her behavior is normal, polite and