Adam and Eve Versus Porphyria's Lover

Adam and Eve versus Porphyria’s Lover Porphyria’s Lover and Adam and Eve are both poems regarding the expectations and disappointments of man. Although both poems are about expectations of a man regarding a woman, both narrators take a different perspective. Both narrators portray animal-like behavior. The difference between the two narrators is one is carefree and the other feels guilty. Both narrators have extreme reactions and both are internalized. Porphyria’s Lover takes place in a cottage on a stormy night. Porphyria arrives to her lover’s home and begins to seduce him as “she rose, and from her form/Withdrew the dripping cloak and shawl/and lid her soiled gloves by (10-12)”. Her lover is undergoing an internal struggle debating in his head whether or not Porphyria loves him. The couple appears to be cuddling while her lover looks into her eyes and feels “happy and proud; at last I knew Porphyria worshiped me (32-33)”. Porphyria’s lover then proceeds to strangle her with her own hair. Her lover opens her eyes after she has died and props her up against his body thinking about the even that just took place. Adam and Eve takes place in an apartment describing a scene between a couple presumably named Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve have come home from an intense date and are preparing to make love. The candles are lit as they crawl into bed when Eve “held her milk white hand agitatedly/over the entrance to her body and said No (14-15)”. Adam becomes infuriated at her rejecting him and begins to think about how much power a woman can hold over a man. Adam also begins to think about the animal-like behavior of men wondering if “the fossil be surgically removed/or dissolved, or redesigned/so the man can be a human being, like a woman (42-44)”. The narrator from Porphyria’s Lover finds no fault in himself but in Porphyria. The lover was upset about Porphyria not being to “give herself to me forever (25)”. As a way to fix