Notes

The Treatment of Women in Porphyria’s lover and My Last Duchess.

The first poem I am going to write abut is called “My Last Duchess” by Robert Browning. I found this poem to be very interesting, as throughout the poem was a sense of mystery and untold secrets. There is also a mix between love and violence, which seems to be a common theme, as I will describe later on.

To begin with, the duchess is never really given a proper voice. This is because the poem is made up of the Duke doing all of the speaking, and only describing the Duchess.

The Duke treats the last Duchess as an object. This is because the Duke perceives the Duchess as entering his social class, meaning he expects the Duchess to treat him with respect and look up to him. Add about line 44-45
She is replaced as she does not respect the “nine-hundred year old name”, and we presume the Duke kills her.

We think that the Duke kills her because he uses words such as ‘dies’: ” “Half-flush that dies along her throat…”. This suggests the Duke killed the Duchess by maybe cutting or strangling her throat. This phrase would be unusual if used to describe anything but death, which gives us the sense that he killed the duchess. Perhaps this put’s the new potential Duchess in danger?

The duchess in My Last Duchess is portrayed as bad. I know this because the Duke didn’t think that she respected her “nine-hundred year old name”, therefore the Duke wants to give her a bad name.

The Duke admits to controlling the Duchess. We know this because on line 45 it says “…This grew. I have commands;”. This shows that the man would assume he had more power than the woman, which is now seen as incorrect by most people.

Robert Browning calls the second poem I am going to write about “Porphyria’s Lover”. In this poem, love is also mixed with jealousy and death. This seems to be a common theme by Robert Browning. Perhaps this is his style of writing from past experience…?

To begin with, Porphyria is: “a rare hereditary disease in which there is abnormal metabolism of the blood pigment haemoglobin”. Diseases are often associated with things that take over your body uncontrollably and are not good. Robert Browning may be hinting that Porphyria herself is similar to the disease hence giving her that name.


Porphyria’s lover is perceived as being obsessed with Porphyria, along with being angry with her when she states she cannot be with him. We understand that he is angry with her as he states that she was “murmuring how she loved me”. Murmuring is usually associated with anger, so the author is making the Lover perceive Porphyria in an angry way. This anger escalates until the surprising finale of her death. He does this as a way of keeping Porphyria as his and preventing her from leaving him.

Porphyria has to leave the Lover as she is of a higher social class than him meaning she will be looked down upon when with him. I know this because… This is the opposite scenario to My Last Duchess, and it’s the woman who is of a lower social class in that.

In conclusion, I think that both poems treat women as if they are possessions. Porphyria’s lover stops Porphyria from being with who she likes by killing her.