My Last Duchess
For the duration of ‘My Last Duchess’ the Duke reveals his need to exert dominance over others. In the monologue he leaves no time after his questions for the envoy to answer, this quickly creates rhetorical questions which control the envoy's speech revealing the Duke’s very egotistical persona. For example ‘Who’d stoop to blame this sort of trifling?’ . Furthermore the Duke calls ‘that piece a wonder, now’ the caesura before the lexical choice ‘now’ gives the line an ominous and sinister feel and predicts our realisation that the Duke is only at ease when he has gained complete control over others, which in this case is the immortalisation of his late Duchess through the form of Art. The Duke announces in a parenthetical aside that ‘none
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As the poem finishes the Duke commands the envoy to ‘Notice Neptune though, / Taming a Seahorse’ and revealed that it was cast by ‘Claus of Innsbruck’ and was specifically for him. This statue is a reflection of his attitude towards women; he regards them as objects instead of people and ‘taming’ them so they’re under his control. The name drop of ‘Claus of Innsbruck’ who ‘cast’ the statue in ‘bronze for me’ echoes the fact that he’s a hedonistic and narcissistic person who is only content when living beings are objectified and immortalised through Art. He is clearly keen to portray himself as a cultured Renaissance man. Unfortunately for the Duke he reveals his murderous ways through his façade of courtly politeness with his line ‘I gave commands;/ then all smiles stopped together.’ revealing his true intentions for his new bride to be and what happened to his last Duchess. Browning also makes it evident that the Duke is the threatened by the Duchess and that she is better than him in every way: Enjoying simple everyday things such as the ‘dropping of daylight in the west’, eliciting affection in everyone she meets, and lacking any possible supremacy she could have over others. The thin veneer of the Dukes politeness cannot hide the chauvinistic inner man who hides behind a mask of respectability, charm and
As the poem finishes the Duke commands the envoy to ‘Notice Neptune though, / Taming a Seahorse’ and revealed that it was cast by ‘Claus of Innsbruck’ and was specifically for him. This statue is a reflection of his attitude towards women; he regards them as objects instead of people and ‘taming’ them so they’re under his control. The name drop of ‘Claus of Innsbruck’ who ‘cast’ the statue in ‘bronze for me’ echoes the fact that he’s a hedonistic and narcissistic person who is only content when living beings are objectified and immortalised through Art. He is clearly keen to portray himself as a cultured Renaissance man. Unfortunately for the Duke he reveals his murderous ways through his façade of courtly politeness with his line ‘I gave commands;/ then all smiles stopped together.’ revealing his true intentions for his new bride to be and what happened to his last Duchess. Browning also makes it evident that the Duke is the threatened by the Duchess and that she is better than him in every way: Enjoying simple everyday things such as the ‘dropping of daylight in the west’, eliciting affection in everyone she meets, and lacking any possible supremacy she could have over others. The thin veneer of the Dukes politeness cannot hide the chauvinistic inner man who hides behind a mask of respectability, charm and