Misogynistic Men and the Women they Hate to Love - Essay Example

Topic: Theme of Misogyny in ic Poetry The Works of Poet Robert Browning Misogynistic Men and the Women they Hate to Love Introduction In studying the poetry of Robert Browning, two of his classics, “My Last Duchess” and “Porphyria’s Lover,” center on the themes of jealousy and what society often refers to as misogynistic men who are either extremely jealous of or extremely hateful of women because of their own jealousies. Browning’s lyrics haunt us the way Psycho haunted us when Alfred Hitchcock introduced the big hunting knife to the shower curtain, a screaming blonde on the other side. Misogyny is defined simply as ‘hatred’ of women; so it is not hard to say that hatred can come of the pure love (or lust) that these two men (the Duke and the Lover) seemed to want to shower on the two women who are the subjects (and objects) of these poems. These are apparently two women who had the men in their lives so afraid of losing their love that they killed to keep them where they wanted them, to control them or at least to control the moment, whether it was in the frame of a portrait or on the bed or couch that the two lovers last shared with one another. One of them even sat up and waited all night for God to come get him for the sin and the crime. If Porphyria’s lover was waiting for God to react to his selfish deed with punishment of some kind, (presumably with a bolt of lightning strategically placed to his left temple for the commission of the act of murder) why did he not just go ahead and kill himself, too? Theme The main overall theme of both Robert Browning poems “My Last Duchess” (hereafter known as “Duchess”) and “Porphyria’s Lover” (hereafter known as “Lover”) is jealousy; as in jealousy mixed with contempt for beautiful women, all the way to the point of literal physical death. The relationship between Porphyria and her lover is positive and has a strong bond. This is why it appears that he (the Lover) could not deal with the thought of being without her. In “Duchess,” the woman that is the target of the Duke’s affection (worship nearly) has already passed on and all he has left of her is the painting on the wall, to which he, the narrator of the poem, refers at the very beginning. In “Lover,” the script is flipped. It is the object of the speaker’s discussion (the lady Porphyria) who nearly worships her man instead. He says this directly. (Browning, ll’s 32 and 33 “Happy and proud; at last I knew Porphyria worshippd me…”). It is with these 10 words that the narrator of the story tells us that he realizes how far she had come to tell him of her love, and he then reveals to us, the reader, how far he must go to leave things where they are. The only clue that we have of a possible motive is when he says in lines 21-25 that she would never “give herself” to him “forever.” For what it was worth and for all the love she professes for him, it appears that she came to tell him she could not loosen the grip that societal mores had on her just to be with him. There is no indication that Porphyria is married, or that the adored one, the narrator, is beneath her upscale standards, so we never find out exactly why Porphyria did not want to ‘rock the boat,’ in so many words, to be with this man that she obviously adored beyond compare. There could have been many reasons in the Victorian age, or the age of prudishness, cloaked over as modesty and righteousness. Unlike the Duchess, who is dead from the start, Porphyria is not referred to in the sense of a decedent until near the end of the story when the narrator’s madness is revealed (Browning, ll’s 39-42, “In one long yellow string I wound Three times her little throat around, And strangled her. No pain felt she; I am quite sure she felt no pain…) It appears that she didn’t even put up a fight. Why did she not cry out or fight or struggle? Is this some indication that she would rather die rather than be without the man of her dreams? The Duke in “Duchess” also speaks of the woman’s throat (the “faint half-flush that dies along her throat.”), but in a different manner; as if he would have liked to choke her himself, but he doesn’t. He has someone else kill her instead. Her wandering eye doesn’t count him above anyone else that she passes in life, so for this he finds her worthy of death. That the “gift” of his very important highly-esteemed 900-years old name in line 33 should be enough for her; but she did not esteem her husband, in his need to be seen above-it-all and better than anyone else, as anything special as far as he could see. In “Duchess” the Duke is stuffy and vehement about his control over his “last” (late) wife who is now just a portrait on the wall—basically saying that she was, in life, no deeper a character than the painting itself. In “Lover,” the man, the object of Porphyria’s affection, after realizing just how in control he is (of her mind and affections, but not her body) decides to keep it that way by killing her, thus putting him in control of her body, also. Both poems speak to a deep masochistic need in these men to have the final say over a woman’s life, no matter if she is a wandering soul who doesn’t think the Duke ‘anything special,’ or a dedicated woman who simply can’t break her political or philosophical boundaries and ties to be with her lover. The fact that Porphyria “sneaked” over to her Lover’s place in the pouring rain just to tell him of her love tells us that she is not quite ready, nor will she ever be, to cross the ethical or moral lines of whatever sort that lay between them. Purpose The purpose of “Lover” may be to explore societal mores about fornication or adultery, as well as to take a look into the “ugliness” of pure and natural sex to the Victorian mindset. Philosophies notwithstanding, the poem speaks to an “everyday” man (as opposed to the Duke who borders on royalty) who lives in a cottage. He becomes enthralled with the idea that a woman could have such a depth of love for him (maybe thought himself incapable of harnessing such depth of caring?). This is not stated definitively. The purpose of “Duchess” is a call to look at the atrocious and overbearing control freak issues of Ferrara nobility. The reader can immediately see how truly low-down and arrogant a man the Duke really is. Browning uses the Duke’s own speech to tell us about it. He can’t even stand the fact that the woman smiled for the monk (Fra’ Pandolf) who was commissioned to paint her portrait. (Browning, ll’s 12-15, “How such a glance came there; so not the first, Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, t was not, Her husbands presence only, called that spot, Of joy into the Duchess cheek: perhaps…) “Duchess” does not state directly that the jealous husband had his supposedly flirtatious wife killed in a fit of rage, but she did not heed his controlling commands to stop smiling at other men until the final smile was frozen on her face in a portrait. (Browning, ll’s 45-47, “Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands; Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands As if alive…) The Duke never stops for a moment to analyze the fact that maybe his wife was just a friendly person, though he begins by praising her, then indicates that it was not long before he realized her “friendliness” was not just for him. The Duke definitely had a need to control his woman, mentioning in the end that he will move on with his life and marry another who will have smiles for him and him only. His attitude toward the deceased Duchess flips in the end, from a man who was admiring and jealous, to that of a man who could really care less that the woman he claimed to love so much could only be controlled in death. He will move on to his next conquest, who will obey his every command. Browning condemns the weak character of the self-righteous Duke who would do such a thing to the woman he claimed to love (did he love her?), then move on to another unsuspecting gullible “fair” young woman (ll’s 51 and 52) because he feels vainly vindicated of something he didn’t need to prove in the first place. In “Lover” Browning explores the self-righteousness contradiction of a society that would enhance a need for deep sensual love and simultaneously condemn it. He does not explore the fact that the seeming contradictions may come from two different mainstream sources, but the fact that they do exist and simultaneously serve no purpose except that of confusion and the ultimate heartache of knowing the pain of pleasure (as philosophized by Englishman Jeremy Bentham). Though both stories are told from the point of view of an intrinsic narrator and not the poems’ single author, it is easy to see that one lover/killer is an humble man who is overwhelmed by the revelation of a woman’s love for him and the other lover/’killer’ is an arrogant man who is taken aback that the woman of his dreams thought no more of him than she did anyone else who she happened to cross, which causes him to have her killed. It seems that both men, the Duke and Porphyria’s lover, were obsessed with throats. Back then, it appeared that strangulation or asphyxiation of a woman (whether with an article of clothing, the long hair on her head, or even the man’s bare hands) was the murder method of choice. The same was true of Alfred Hitchcock’s well known hatred of women, particularly – as in Porphyria’s case – blondes. Style The style of “Duchess” is what is known as a “heroic couplet.” The poem rhymes in aa, bb, cc, dd, ee, ff, gg, et al, meter successively from beginning to finish. The style of “Lover” comes close to being an elegy, but has more of an intended conversational style in ababb, ababb, ababb rhyming meter all the way to the tragic end. Both poems are of Robert Browning’s curious style in the way he handles the telling of the stories (the killers are, after all, without excuse for their treachery against these women) and in the way he portrays the insanities of both poem’s narrators, the Duke and the Lover of Porphyria, whatever his name is. One orders a killing, the other does the killing completely of his own accord. Tone The tone of “Duchess” changes from admiration to haughtiness to a cold chill with regard to the Duke’s late wife and his final “Oh well, I will just get on with my life; and marry another hopefully better than my wife” demeanor. The tone of “Lover” borders on erotica. Did the man kill his lover Porphyria in the heat of passionate lovemaking, or just as she sat next to him divulging all of the deep secrets of her heart that she could never own up to or reveal in public. Conclusion The two poems parallel one another only in the sense that they were stories told by two men who decided “If I can’t have her [you], my way, no one else will.” They also both seemed to be saying, in their own special ways, “I hated that I loved you.” Read More