Witty Comparison
A Witty Comparison
The two poems, “My Last Duchess” and “My Ex-Husband” each have their own unforgettable stories to tell, but are they really that different from each other? They each have their differences, but the similarities are there too that make them easy to compare to one another. The narrators show their feelings for the one that they initially lost, and tell the story of what had happened. When cheating, killing and inner secrets come out, then you start to see what really happened.
To start comparing, the two the narrators of each story are different. In “My Last Duchess,” the narrator is a man of royalty. In “My Ex-Husband” however, it is a women. In, “My Last Duchess,” the narrator talks about his wife and of how he saw her to be treating everyone as equally as she treated him. The poem even starts out as thus, “Thats my last Duchess.” (Browning 1). However,because he saw this as a threat to him, the narrator becomes enraged and decides to do away with her, permanently. Now he is looking for someone new. In “My Ex-Husband,” the woman is talking with her boyfriend and tells him about how much she had loved her ex-husband. She too starts off the poem in the same way with, “Thats my Ex-Husband” (Spera 1). She told him about how great he was and at the very end hints to the fact that he had cheated on her so they got divorced. That changed the perspective of what happened in the beginning of the poem to show she was being sarcastic of her ex’s “greatness” The Duke, in his story, brought up the hints of what he did slowly through the poem, whereas the woman waited till the end for her story’s climax. Both ways, in my opinion, are very effective. I see in both poems that the narrators bring up what they liked about their partner to another person, the Duke to the Count’s representative, and the women to her new boyfriend.
Now after stating those points, close examination reveals that there is an underlying message that can arise from one of the
The two poems, “My Last Duchess” and “My Ex-Husband” each have their own unforgettable stories to tell, but are they really that different from each other? They each have their differences, but the similarities are there too that make them easy to compare to one another. The narrators show their feelings for the one that they initially lost, and tell the story of what had happened. When cheating, killing and inner secrets come out, then you start to see what really happened.
To start comparing, the two the narrators of each story are different. In “My Last Duchess,” the narrator is a man of royalty. In “My Ex-Husband” however, it is a women. In, “My Last Duchess,” the narrator talks about his wife and of how he saw her to be treating everyone as equally as she treated him. The poem even starts out as thus, “Thats my last Duchess.” (Browning 1). However,because he saw this as a threat to him, the narrator becomes enraged and decides to do away with her, permanently. Now he is looking for someone new. In “My Ex-Husband,” the woman is talking with her boyfriend and tells him about how much she had loved her ex-husband. She too starts off the poem in the same way with, “Thats my Ex-Husband” (Spera 1). She told him about how great he was and at the very end hints to the fact that he had cheated on her so they got divorced. That changed the perspective of what happened in the beginning of the poem to show she was being sarcastic of her ex’s “greatness” The Duke, in his story, brought up the hints of what he did slowly through the poem, whereas the woman waited till the end for her story’s climax. Both ways, in my opinion, are very effective. I see in both poems that the narrators bring up what they liked about their partner to another person, the Duke to the Count’s representative, and the women to her new boyfriend.
Now after stating those points, close examination reveals that there is an underlying message that can arise from one of the
References: Browning, Robert. “My Last Duchess,” Literature and its Writers. Ed. Ann Charters, Samuel Charters. 5th ed. Boston: Bedford, 2010. 795. Print. Spera, Gabriel. “ My Ex-Husband,” Literature and the Writing Process. Ed. Elizabeth McMahan, Susan X Day and Robert Funk. 7th ed. Upper Saddle River: Prentice, 2005. 672. Print.