Analysis of poetry and fictional narrative themes

¶ … Last Duchess

Jealousy, Rage, and Possession in Browning's "My Last Duchess"

Robert Browning's "My Last Duchess" emphasizes Victorian ideals of women and allows readers to understand how they were objectified. In this macabre poem, Browning uses the themes of jealousy, rage, and possessiveness to describe what motivated the Duke to behave as he did. In the poem, the unnamed narrator has transformed his wife into an object on numerous occasions and appears to pride himself on controlling women, and nonchalantly boasts to the emissary making arrangements for his next marriage how he controlled his previous wife and the consequences of her not obeying him. The narrator remains oblivious to his own faults throughout the poem and focuses only adding to his collection of prized possession, whether they are actual objects or wives.

In "My Last Duchess," the narrator objectifies his wife while she is alive and after she has died. While the duchess is alive, the narrator tries to transform his wife into an object, a possession he can control and manipulate. While his wife was alive, the narrator failed to assert his claim over his wife and her behavior, which often sent him into a jealous rage. The narrator exclaims, "She had/A heart -- how shall I say? -- too soon made glad,/Too easily impressed; she liked whate'er/She looked on, and her looks went everywhere."[footnoteRef:1] Through this complaint, the narrator implies that his wife was unfaithful because she was too easily impressed and was enchanted by the world around her. The narrator's jealousy also seems to point to the fact that his wife was dissatisfied with him and did not receive the attention she sought from her husband. Furthermore, the narrator continues to argue that despite carrying his "favor at her breast,"[footnoteRef:2] she accepted gifts such as "[the] bough of cherries some officious fool/Broke in the orchard for her,"[footnoteRef:3] which he construed as being unfaithful because he believed that if she was willing to accept these gifts so easily, then she would also easily attempt to repay the favor sexually. The narrator contends, "She thanked men -- good! But thanked/Somehow -- I know not how -- as if she ranked/My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name/With anybody's gift."[footnoteRef:4] Not only was he jealous of his wife, but the narrator was also jealous of his family's name, furiously admonishing his wife for shaming him with her behavior. In this context, it appears that in addition to attempting to control his wife and treating her as an object or property. Not only is the narrator possessive of his wife, but he is also possessive of his family's name and heritage and does not realize that he has also turned it, and what it represents, into something else he can control, and give and take away at will. [1: Robert Browning, "My Last Duchess," line 21-24, accessed August 21, 2013, http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15701] [2: Ibid, line 25] [3: Ibid, line 27-28] [4: Ibid, line 31-34]

While the narrator recognizes his wife's faults, regardless of how minor they might be, he does not attempt to rectify her behavior and expects her to automatically behave in a specific manner. He rants, "Even had you skill/In speech -- (which I have not) -- to make your will/Quite clear," readily admitting that he does not know how to communicate with his wife. Paradoxically, while the narrator does not know how to communicate with his wife, he is quite effective in ordering others around. The narrator confidently asserts, "I gave commands; Then all smiles stopped together."[footnoteRef:5] While the narrator is not explicit in what he commanded be done to his wife, it can be inferred that he ordered her killed, which is why is in negotiations for another wife. [5: Ibid, line 45-46]

Not being satisfied with his inability to turn his wife into an object that he could control like a possession while she was alive, the narrator manages to literally transform her into an object and the woman he always wanted her to be after her death. At the beginning of the poem, while in negotiations for a new wife, the narrator begins to talk about his last wife, who has been immortalized in a painting. The narrator tells the emissary, "That's my last Duchess painted on the wall,/Looking as if she were still alive. I call/That piece a wonder, now: Fra Pandolf's hands/Worked busily a day, and there she stands."[footnoteRef:6] In death, the narrator is finally able control his previous wife, which he could not seem to do while she was alive. The narrator arrogantly boasts that he is the only person that is allowed to pull back the curtain that covers the painting. He explains, "none puts by/The curtain I have drawn for you, but I,"[footnoteRef:7] which finally allows him to be the only one that sets eyes upon her and hers upon him. Her looks no longer have the ability to go everywhere and she is no longer free to do what she wants. [6: Ibid, line 1-4] [7: Ibid, line 9-10]