Comparing Porphyria's Lover 'And My Last Duchess'

Within “Porphyria’s Lover” and “My Last Duchess,” Robert Browning suggest couples do not have fully expressed relationships because of power relations and an individual’s psychology. The inability for the fulfillment of an expressed relationship can be caused by power relations. Within “Porphyria’s Lover,” the speaker says, “she too weak, for all her heart’s endeavor, to set its struggling passion free from pride, and vainer ties dissever.” Cite Browning shows the speaker perceiving Porphyria to be vulnerable compared to him. Add the secondary source and discuss how women were viewed as precious and fragile objects during the romanticism ages. During _______, women were commonly viewed and treated as fragile and vulnerable objects; women to begin following the men, therefore, creating men to obtain greater power than women. Cite. “Be sure I looked up at her eye happy and proud; at last I knew Porphyria worshipped me” The speaker said porphyria worshipped him. He believes she views him as a

Commonly, the last thing couples would do is to cause harm to one another. While Porphyria’s lover, “In one long yellow string I wound three times her little throat around, and strangled her,” notes the speaker. Moreover, not only does the speaker strangle her, he kills her. Psychologically he is thinking that Porphyria felt no pain and she indeed wanted her death to happen. The speaker in “Porphyria's Lover” says, “no pain felt she; I am quite sure she felt no pain.” The speaker is not Porphyria, so he cannot be sure she did not feel anything. On the other hand, the speaker could be thinking about how she feels no pain because he believes if she is willing to “give herself to me forever,” she will ender the pain. An individual’s psychology can affect the growth and the expression of the relationship, like Porphyria’s psychotic lover and the misunderstood