Each work of fiction demonstrates the differing aspects and motivations that can result from the feeling of love. Love can make people act differently, as if they are different people completely. Browning’s poem, “My Last Duchess,” explores the possessive side of love and looks at the motivations behind this type of emotion. Throughout the poem, the duke is speaks of his first wife, by describing the painting by Frà Pandolf. “After saying that he alone opens the curtain, the duke promptly begins a catalog of complaints about the way that his wife had acted” (Marchino, 2).
When he tells his fiancée, Sibyl Vane, that he does not want to see her anymore, she becomes despondent and kills herself. Her suicide gives rise to his guilty and remorseful feelings. He considers her death his fault, and there had to have been something he could’ve done to prevent her death. When Lord Henry hears of Dorian’s culpability, he swiftly saturates Dorian’s head with his philosophies and repudiates anything more of how Sibyl’s death is Gray’s burden to bear and to think of her death as a “perfect artistic representation of undying love” (Wilde 79-89). Although Dorian rapidly surrenders to Lord Henry’s words, the idea that he felt rueful shows that within Gray, there is the capability of
The Duke is quite a performer: he mimics others’ voices, creates hypothetical situations, and uses the force of his personality to make horrifying information seem merely colorful. Indeed, the poem provides a classic example of a dramatic monologue: the speaker is clearly distinct from the poet; an audience is suggested but never appears in the poem; and the revelation of the Duke’s character is the poem’s primary aim. Commentary But Browning has more in mind than simply creating a colorful character and placing him in a picturesque historical scene. Rather, the specific historical setting of the poem
“The Duchess is pleased with a bough of cherries just as much as she was to her Husband” (Mitchell 75). The way that she felt made the Duke feel insulted that a man of his social status was compared to slaves and sunsets. The Duke is very jealous that his social status and he are on the same level as a white mule to his Duchess. The things that the Duchess loves anger the Duke because he thinks
Along with the frequent use of rhyming couplets and enjambment, this makes it clear that the Duke was a suspicious and dominant man to his dead wife and also shows his control. The first evidence in the poem to support this is “Will’t please you sit and look at her?” and also “Sir, twas not her husband’s presence only, called that spot of joy into the Duchess’ cheek!” Both are said in reference to his wife to the Count’s envoy. These are effective as we are presented with the subjective viewpoint of the Duke. Like Shakespeare, Browning wrote plays as well as poetry which is evident as we see how he combined the techniques of play writing and poetry. Again, as the Duke talks about the Duchess
I believe that he lying and that he left this woman in a state of distress that contributed to her state of mind when she committed suicide. Furthermore, Mrs Billings and Ms Billings both treated Ms Smith badly. Mrs Birling refusal to help Ms Smith must have made Ms Smith feel like she had no one to turn to. Furthermore, Ms Billings was jealous of Ms Smith and, once again, Ms Smith loses another job. Ms Smith must have felt that she didn't have any friends at
Macbeth’s ambition to become king, which is a position of great control over scotland’s affairs, causes him to lose control in his own life. In order to attain the throne, Macbeth commits murder, and the resulting guilt overwhelms and takes over his life. He becomes paranoid, and as he attempts to secure his throne by removing anyone whom he suspects to be a threat, he neglects Lady Macbeth, who had ultimate control over him so that he lost control in his life when Lady Macbeth distanced from him and died. Even at the beginning of the play, Macbeth had become submissive to the fate that the witches had prophesized for him, such that he did not account for the choices that he makes in life anymore and lost control. Macbeth becomes victim to guilt when he kills Duncan for the throne, and guilt then takes over his life, leaving him without control of his own behaviors.
Oscar Wilde’s ability to create intriguing and complex characters enables the reader to manifest his or herself in the story. He demonstrates this in “The Picture of Dorian Gray” by constructing the persona of an impressionable, vain, and alluring man named Dorian Gray. In this particular circumstance, Dorian’s naïve perception of life sets him up for failure. Paralleling this concept, Malcolm X once said, “A man who stands for nothing will fall for anything.” (“Malcolm X Quotes”). Expanding upon this, one can be easily swayed in the wrong direction if his or her beliefs and morals aren’t firmly grounded.
The dramatic monologue exposes the speaker’s true personality and his situation more than he aims to say both to the agent and the reader The Duke of Ferrara seems to be controlling in nature; he tries to control everyone he is comes to term with, like he controls the actions of the agent : “Will’t please you sit and look at her”, “Will’t please you rise?” and “Nay, we’ll go/ Together down, sir” . He succeeded in controlling Fra Pandolf’s works of art but failed to control his wife when she was still alive. When the Duchess dies he fully gains power over her, his possessiveness surfaces in the lines 9 to 10: “since non puts by/ the curtain I have drawn for you, but I”. The Duke tries to put his wife in the bad light, giving the reader the impression that she is flirtatious, false and disrespectful, while he appears to be the abused but caring husband. His previous wife’s actions leave him no choice but to kill her.
He stops at a painting of his late wife, his ‘last Duchess’ and begins a speech of which he is recanting his thoughts of her. From this speech, his wife was popular, especially with men, and a passionate and pleasant lady (to the reader only). The Duke is telling of his intolerances of her actions, being that of flirtations with men, however innocent, and how she did not rate his ‘gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name’, but instead treated him as she did others. It is well hinted that her behaviour angered the Duke so he had his Duchess killed, ‘I gave commands;Then all the smiles stopped together.’ It would seem his speech is also for the purpose of letting the envoy know his expectations of his new wife, that being very different to the last. Because the poem is in the form of a dramatic monologue, the reader only shares the conversation of the Duke.