Essay Comparing My Last Duchess And Porphyria's Lover

Two literary pieces by Robert Browning gave chilling imprints upon the readers. Reading the two text titled My Last Duchess and Porphyria’s Lover are about two women killed by their partners. They are similar in that fact, but different in another. A main contrast is the way the women were killed. In Duchess, we do not know exactly how the duchess died; while in Lover, every detail is shared. Another important contrast is the difference in motive. Why did these men kill the women they ‘loved?’ In Duchess, we are told exactly why the husband was willing to go as far as to kill his wife. On the contrary, we have no idea why Porphyria’s lover killed her. To compare and contrast these two text we find them similar because both women were killed, and different because of motive and how the crime was committed. Psychotic, delusional, or just plain inhumane: these women picked the
Both, however, were out of acts of jealousy. They felt that their wives were disloyal to them, but their reasoning was varied. The Duke killed his beautiful wife simply because she was too happy. A strange motive, no doubt, but Porphyria’s lover made his motive unclear. It was obvious that he was mad at Porphyria, but what for? Had she cheated on him? As readers, we will never know, but it was something that triggered him enough to kill her. What made his killing even stranger was how much Porphyria loved him. “Porphyria worshipped me,” Line 33 Lover. If she loved him so much, why would he have any reason to kill her? Obviously, there was many similarities and differences in the two text Porphyria’s Lover and My Last Duchess by Robert Browning. Both chilling stories of how to men killed their beautiful lovers makes many think about how terrifying the world truly is. They also make you question why Browning would write such awful stories. We should all pray that he wasn’t inspired by true