Tuesday, December 10, 2019

How does Browning bring vividly to life the men and their relationships in “Porphyria’s Lover” and “My Last Duchess” Essay Example For Students

How does Browning bring vividly to life the men and their relationships in â€Å"Porphyria’s Lover† and â€Å"My Last Duchess†? Essay To be able to create a perceptibly vivid character in literature can be considered to be one of the greatest challenges in the literary world, and doing so to a level where the reader can truly empathise with the created character is a greater feat still. In this matter Browning truly was a literary genius as in less than sixty lines he manages to create two male protagonists that are living and breathing, ready to leap off the page. The different ways in which he achieves this are the structure of the entire poem, vocabulary and word choice, use of literary techniques and their differences in dealing with essentially the same subject. The poem â€Å"Porphyria’s Lover,† which first appeared in 1836, is considered to be one of Browning’s most shocking monologues. The action of â€Å"Porphyria’s Lover† unfolds through the recounting of the events of one night, culminating in the murder of Porphyria, by the speaker himself. The structure of the poem could be described as one of twelve stanzas with an ababb rhyme structure, though it is most often printed as a block poem. The majority of the lines contain four iambic feet, though a few are pentasyllabic. The unusual rhyming structure used seems to be the first hint of the speaker’s mental discord, as it is his narrating voice that we are following. A factor that further heightens this, as yet hypothesis, about the narrator’s instability is the enjambment that is used throughout the poem. It reveals his unaffected, lackadaisical nature that relates to something that one truly should not be indifferent to. â€Å" †¦and all her hair In one long yellow string I wound Three times her little throat around, And strangled her.† This shows how unnaturally nonchalant and disorderly his thought processes are, his morbid un-emotionality piques our interest and causes the character to seem truly vivid. This element emphasises the tone and seems to make the understated nature even more sociopathic. Another factor is the vocabulary Robert Browning uses. Most of the words are monosyllabic creating a simple mood that is not broken by the polysyllabic that are incorporated in a quiet and unassuming manner; they do not break the tense tranquillity of the piece. â€Å"I am quite sure she felt no pain. As a shut bud that holds a bee, I warily oped her lids: again Laughed the blue eyes without a stain.† Here we see the simplistic almost naà ¯ve way in which the speech is narrated. Much of the force of the narrative lies in its practically innocent clarity and in the corresponding quiet, matter-of-fact tone of voice that seems to heighten the severity of the actual actions. The line â€Å"No pain felt she, I am quite sure she felt no pain† accentuates the horror of the going on by its seemingly childish-like affirmations. The detached, emotionless account with the cold and distant metaphor creates a chilling effect, by which the character of the speaker is made more vivid. Also, Browning uses literary techniques to truly bring the character to life. One such example is the pathetic fallacy that used to not only set the mood for the entire poem, but also the mind set and mental state of the actual speaker. â€Å"The rain set early in tonight, The sullen wind was soon awake, It tore the elm-tops down for spite, And did its worst to vex the lake: I listened with heart fit to break.† Immediately we are introduced into a setting where the weather is dark and gloomy. The use of personification instantly hints at the fact that it is not only the weather that is being described. Words such as â€Å"awake†, â€Å"tore†, â€Å"spite† and â€Å"vex† imply a humanness that corresponds with the main protagonist. The slight alliteration that is used â€Å"sullen-soon†, â€Å"tore the elm-tops†, â€Å"worst-vex† further accentuates the fact. He is listening, listening intently and he feels empathy for the weather. He can sympathise, he is feeling the same things. We are shown his inner turmoil, his nebulousness and his destructiveness. The opening lines are a sort of foreshadowing for the rest of the poem and the true character of the narrator. Another way in which Browning brings vividly to life the male protagonist is the slow revelation of true character, the building up of suspense, tension followed by the terrible twist. At first we are simply aware of the hints that are conveyed through the weather, the suspicion of something being amiss. Then we come to the description of Porphyria, through which we learn a lot about the speaker’s character. We know that he is watching her intently by the use of the anaphora, he describes her every motion. Autism EssayThe Duke’s dramatic monologue is full of dramatizations, parodies, flattery and direct confrontations. It is obvious that he is a man of higher society. This is not only implied by his status and vocabulary, but also to the way he acts around the auditor. He tries to hide his true intentions, he makes the envoy feel intimate with him, he even flatters him to an extent. â€Å"Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse,† We can clearly see the mask that he puts on, trying to never reveal what is truly going on underneath but when he starts discussing his former wife’s immoderate pleasure that absolutely everything, the perfectly prepared mask begins to slip. â€Å"Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough For calling up that spot of joy. 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.† We begin to see the real vile anger that is being covered up by the courtliness. The â€Å"she thought† suggests his disregard for her opinion, his belief that she was wrong. There seems to have been a great age difference between the Duke and the Duchess that caused his inferior view of her. Also, we begin to sense his disapproval of her behaviour. He sees her as being too free with her affections, a slight bit too shallow, too easily impressed. His use of the phrase â€Å"how shall I say?† shows that he is pretending to not be intentionally rude, he is simply stating the truth and already in as mild terms as possible. Here we begin to see his insincerity and manipulativeness. In the lines after that we witness an escalation of his anger. â€Å"The bough of cherries some officious fool Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule† Here we feel a quickening of pace and a distinctness of rhyme and rhythm. The Duke’s use of fricative sounds such as â€Å"officious fool† betray his genuine irritation. We are also made aware of his impossible superiority and his preference of someone else doing his dirty work for him. â€Å"—E’en then would be some stooping; and I choose Never to stoop. Oh sir, she smiled, no doubt, Whene’er I passed her; but who passed without Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands; Then all smiles stopped together† For him it is of the utmost importance to never let himself sink below what he considers to be his level. And then we reach the great revelation. â€Å"I gave commands; / Then all smile stopped together.† It is in this line that we find out that the Duke actually did have his Duchess killed, and what for? What he considered to be a simple mindedness and excessive amiability. It also seems as though a matter of life and death is a simple matter for him. He did not view the Duchess as a human being, she was just one more of his precious possessions that didn’t quiet correspond with his expectations, and so he had her removed. We can also see his need for complete control over a situation. He wasn’t able to conform her to his standards so he did it in a slightly more radical way, by eliminating her. In conclusion, there are many ways in which Browning vividly brings to life the men and their relationships in both â€Å"Porphyria’s Lover† and â€Å"My Last Duchess†. He does so through structure, revealing their states of mind, through vocabulary, revealing their tone and background, and through slow revelation of character, that builds up and up until all their efforts at concealment are swiped away and all that is left is the bare truth. The last one is what I believe to be the most important factor as it is what interests the leader most. First we get an almost accidental glimpse, then it becomes more and more clear until we have the feeling that we actually understand those characters. They are living people, made of bones and flesh, just as we are and they have opinions and faults and sometimes even virtues and that is what truly makes those characters so vivid, their humanity.

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