The Murderer and The Duke
(Compare and Contrast Last and Lover)
In both stories written by Robert Browning, My Last Duchess and Porphyria’s Lover, Robert brings up how both of the women in each story die in some way, one that we don’t know of and we still are asking the question and the other by being murdered. Each story has a different twist to it though they both speak up on the same topic, death. Death is something not everyone expects to reader, especially with titles like these ones but it is always a good thing to have a nice twist within them. Both Porphyria’s Lover and My Last Duchess speak up on the death of each women but one story doesn’t really get into the details while the other does which leaves a bunch of questions to be asked.
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The story begins with a sentence about the weather and how the rain began to pick up and the wind was starting to get crazy. With that, it sets the mood of the whole story, gloomy. As Porphyria entered the cottage, her man was sitting in the dark and cold so she started a fire, basically showing who is in charge at the moment. She began to try speaking to him but he wouldn’t say a word then Porphyria began basically cuddle with her man but he still wouldn’t speak to her. As the story progresses, her man begins having thoughts, and takes action when he goes to murder her. “First, with the structure of the poem, Browning shows the descent of the speaker into madness that takes place” (Kukathas Uma, "Critical Essay on 'Porphyria 's Lover"), as the story progresses, you can tell that the male is growing more insane as Porphyria is whispering to him how much she loves him and wants to be with him forever, the narrator of this story makes it easy for the reader to catch on and watch as the male turns crazy. This story starts off as a love story, in a way but then it slowly turns into a murder story, all Porphyria wanted to do was show her love for her man. “Only this time my shoulder bore her head.” (Page 984, lines 50-51), earlier, Porphyria made him rest his head on her shoulder, but now that she is dead, he rests her head on his shoulder, in a way showing who is in charge now, even though it’s not fair because she is