My Last Duchess by Robert Browning Essay -- Last Duchess Robert Browni

My Last Duchess by Robert browningIn his poem My Last Duchess, Robert Browning gives his lectors a complex picture of his two main characters. The Duke, who narrates the poem, is the most straight present but Browning sets him up to ultimately lose the readers trust. The Duchess becomes the sympathetic character, a victim of foul play. It is through the sundry(a) representations of the Duchess within the poem that we come to know both characters. The representations of the Duchess, which focus on her ever-present smile and easily satisfied nature, come in tangy contrast with the desperate, sputtering language of the Duke as he tries to tell their news report on his own terms. This contrast is a manifestation of the Dukes frustration with his in capacity to control the Duchess and her nonchalant but near-total control over him.The Duchess is first introduced as a painting hanging in the Dukes gallery. The actually sorting in which we meet her gives us an indication of bo th her passivity and her ability to persist, unchanged, in one mode of behavior. A painting has very fiddling living communicative power, relying on the expressiveness of its subject at the time of painting. It is far-famed that no mention is made of any background or consequent objects in the paintingoften in portraiture these elements are relied upon to remove key ideas about the subject. It seems that the Duchess relied solely upon herself and the painter to tell her own story. take aim if other objects are in the painting, they are unremarkable enough that uncomplete Duke nor poet feels compelled to mention them. From a literary standpoint, this means that the poet felt that we needed no other initial information about the Duchess. Even at the level of chara... ...haunts him, and by placing it both first and last he drives it home very strongly. He cant help but repeat that joint when confronted with the Duchess who is both still bright and as if alivehe is ope rate mad by the idea that he couldnt even survive in killing her. His actions, too, are driven by the Duchess. Since she is still smiling and life-like, despite his best efforts to the contrary, he is driven to the irrational extreme of covering fire the painting and ensuring that none puts by the curtainbut himself (9-10) His extraordinary appetite to control the Duchess leave him vulnerable to her imperviousness. By remaining unaffected by the Dukes strenuous efforts to alter her behavior, the Duchess forces the Duke to take more and more forceful measureslike killing her and hiding her paintingand eats away at his ability to even keep control of himself.