Elizabeth Barrett Browning

to go against the beliefs of the majority, especially when a topic is considered too controversial to challenge. In Margaret Atwood’s “My Last Duchess”, this happens to be the case for her female protagonist when her class studies a poem by Robert Browning that is also titled “My Last Duchess”, in which a Duke had his Duchess killed for his own selfish reasons. Unexpectedly, the young girl’s interpretation of the Duke is vastly different from the rest of her class, thereby leading her to…

In 1633, John Donne published a metaphysical poem titled The Flea. This poem consists of an erotic theme where a flea is used as a metaphor in order to demonstrate the affair between the speaker and their lover. In the same year, The Altar was published by George Herbert. This poem illustrates the religious notion of how one must sacrifice themselves to God through the use of an altar. In the following, The Flea and The Altar will be compared and contrasted in terms of the physical shape of the…

“My Last Duchess” by Robert Browning is a poem written in the form of a dramatic monologue. In it, the speaker describes the portrait of his late wife to the servant of a prospective bride’s father. Throughout the description, the speaker’s sociopathy is made increasingly clear, with the heavily implication that he was the actual cause of the wife’s demise. Browning reveals the prideful, control-obsessed, and sociopathic character of the speaker through self-boasting, caesuras in the monologue,…

An Application for Slavery In Sylvia Plath's poem "The Applicant", a male marriage applicant is being interviewed for his quality as a suitor and his willingness to accept the girl being offered for marriage by the narrator. While the young man is being grilled by the narrator, he does not near experience the harsh narrative treatment that the prospective bride receives, being purposefully deprived of both gendered pronouns and choice of action as part of the arrangement. Plath uses metaphor…

In the movie, McFarland, one of the main characters, Damacio, wrote a poem about his passion: running. His poem brought people to tears and was a powerful way to express his feelings toward his hobby. Similarly, Walt Whitman wrote the poems “O Me! O Life!” and “O Captain! My Captain!” to express how he was feeling when he wrote each poem. “O Captain! My Captain!” is an elegy written in remembrance of Abraham Lincoln. However, according to Shenandoah Literary, “O Me! O Life!” represents how…

An essential theme present all throughout the novel, State of Wonder by Ann Patchett, is the journey it takes for people as individuals to find who they truly are, and how the topic of morality plays a big role in the process. From the beginning of the book, it is evident that the main character, Dr. Marina Singh, relies solely on past events which in consequence, continue to torment her as an adult and further dictate how she lives her life. Moreover, these fears increase as she begins her…

To look into a cursed mirror, is to be strangled by your own hair. Wait a minute that's not right but that's that's that's far from the same thing. With the two poems I am speaking of, Porphyria's Lover written by Robert Browning and Lady of Shalott written by Lord Tennyson, are the same in his many ways as they are different. This is like comparing two great works of art the Mona Lisa and the Starry Night both have beauty in their own ways. But you can't challenge either one about being more…

The idea of murder may make people’s stomach turn, but to the Duke in Robert Browning’s poem “My Last Duchess” it seems like an easy task. The Duke is showing the emissary the painting of his last Duchess and telling him of her flaws and how she made him unhappy. The Duke has met with the emissary to discuss his next marriage. The death of his most recent Duchess was caused by the Duke and his personalities traits. They are the reason for him murdering her because he is a jealous, selfish,…

Robert Browning wrote two very interesting poems, My Last Duchess and Porphyria’s Lover. Both of these poem contain a murder in which a Jealous man ends up killing his lover or lovers. They both tell an important message to men, sometimes they act out in rage and later regret their decisions. Jealousy is a very powerful feeling and sometimes guys don’t realize how controlling they are over the girl. Robert Browning’s My Last Duchess and Porphyria’s Lover share much in common but are also…

Willingness to follow authority is discussed as a reason for some of the policemen’s motive behind shooting. There are multiple aspects of this theory discussed in the book. In one part, Browning mentions that some followed orders by authority based on a desire to advance their careers. Others, who were not wanting to make a career in the police force could justify their actions to themselves by claiming they were just following orders,…