Porphyria's Lover 'And My Last Duchess'

Throughout history, worldwide events have been the sole inspiration for literature. As a result of many authors writing about the same themes during the same time, different literary periods have been formed to classify these works into overall categories. During the time period of the late 1700s to the late 1800s, many changes were taking place in Britain; all of which are vividly described in the literature from this time period. Controversial topics such as death, nature, society, gender, and several others, were heavily debated in many works during this time. Britain was undergoing such dramatic changes as a result of various events that had a deep impact on the country, such as the American Revolution, the French Revolution, and corrupt

In both works, readers can see how Robert Browning depicts the theme of death similarly through the men who took their lovers’ lives. It is clear through both of these works that death was a very common occurrence due to the fact that neither of the men seemed to be very upset about losing their lovers, instead they seemed to be rather complacent with their actions. It was almost as if they believed that they were entitled to doing whatever they wanted to these women, even if that meant killing them. In both “Porphyria’s Lover” and “My Last Duchess,” the narrators were numb to the death of these women and seemed to be insane. These aspects are most likely due to the time period the narrators were living in. Death was all around them, it was almost an everyday occurrence. These men no longer knew how to cope with death. Whether they were insane from being exposed to so much death or simply did not care if these women were dead or alive, it shall be concluded that the time period they were living in, filled with war and epidemic outbreaks clearly played a role in the actions of the