Comparison Of My Last Duchess And Porphyria's Lover

The thought of love can be overpowering for many. In the article Why Is Love Important, it informs, “Love is a universal feeling, which is felt by every living being on this earth,” (Sharma). The concept of love exists for everyone, but what happens when love becomes obsession? In the dramatic monologues, or forms of poetry where an individual is speaking, My Last Duchess and Porphyria's Lover by Robert Browning, the poems deal with two men who are in love with beautiful women, to which they kill. The men claim to love their other halves entirely, but why would they murder them? To readers, obsession comes to the mind first. In the two poems, both men perhaps kill their lovers out of jealousy and to gain power in their relationships; however, the man in My Last Duchess admits that he kills his wife, whereas the man in Porphyria’s Lover is in …show more content…
In My Last Duchess, the duke hints to the man he is speaking with that he killed his wife. He mentions that she wouldn’t stop smiling at people and whined about not receiving that kind of smile. The woman smiling and the duke disliking it may have been a huge act of obsession. Furthermore, the article Confusing Love With Obsession? Know the Warning Signs enlightens, “Instead, it is a caustic condition whereby a person has intrusive thoughts about another and is unable to focus on much else except that individual,” (Hollywood). The duke may have well been attached to his wife in an emotional way to the point where he couldn’t stand the thought of her being too nice to other men, people and not to him. This causes him to have an outrage, where he evidently ends his wife’s life. At the end of the poem he mentions how her smiles are gone even though he feels that she is still alive. That possibly could have been him admitting to his murder, but also by the way he treats her painted picture as a