I found Robert Browning’s poems to be quite interesting except for “Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came”. I found the first two difficult to understand at first, but now I realize that they were about power, gender, and class struggles between the main character and a female character in the poems. What I found the most interesting about “Porphyria’s Lover” and “The Last Duchess” was that the main characters were somewhat crazy and possessive which is unlike any of the other poems that we have read so far. Even though in that time the Victorians became more interested in psychology, I wonder if there were many men that were power crazy and would have gone to such extreme lengths to retain their dignity and power. It makes me think that there were since women did not have many rights at that time and their husbands had all of the power, and also Europe was known for colonizing and taking over many other countries.
Even though her lover saw that she really loved him, I do not understand why he did not just ask her if he could act like he had all of the power sometimes when they were together. Or maybe he was just too power hungry to except that and did not want to stop at anything as long as she was below him in status and power. In a way Porpyria’s lover reminded me of Manfred in “The Castle of Otranto”, since he was the most concerned about maintaining power and control in his castle and everyone in it. Although, Manfred was not as crazy since he still had a reputation to uphold so he could not do anything too rash.
I also found it interesting that the poem took on a different tone once he decided that he wants to kill her in order to preserve her goodness and pureness. But, what I don’t understand is that she will eventually decompose soon, so I wonder what he would do then. Even though the two poems were about crazy men, I liked how Browning seemed to include a meaning to the two poems that could have related to what was happening in that period at that time.
Discussion Questions:
Once Porphyria’s body decomposes do you think that her lover would find another upper class woman to love and kill her also so he would have all the power again?
If Porphyria had not been an upper class woman do you think he would have still killed her to have absolute control over her?
I do'nt think the narrator would have killed Porphyria if she was not an upper class woman. If she was of the same class as him I don't think there would be any reason for the two to conceal their relationship. Since their relationship would not be a secret I don't think the narrator would experience the same power struggle he did, which led to Porphyria's death.
ReplyDelete-Laura