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My Last Dutchess

In Robert Browning's "My Last Duchess," the duke gives a chilling speech that reveals a soul devoid of love, tenderness, or any human feeling at all. His only concerns are related to how he feels, how he appears to others, and whether or not he is in control. The title, "My Last Duchess," implies that he has had a succession of wives, and that this is the most recent. As the poem progresses, the duke increasingly reveals his dissatisfaction with the duchess for not regarding him as the center of her universe, the only one who pleases her, and the only one worthy of her praise and adulation.

Her husband's presence only, called that spot

A heart--how shall I say?--too soon made glad,

Too easily impressed; she liked whate'er

She looked on, and her looks went everywherea

Somehow--I know not how--as if she ranked

My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name

The duke clearly feels that his name is enough for him to give in return to the duchess for the lifetime of single-minded devotion to him that he expects from her.

What is most frightening is the cold-blooded implication that he has had her murdered because her lack of total subservience to him displeased him. "Looking as if she were alive" tells us that she no longer is, and "I gave commands; then all smiles stopped together" intimates that he had ordered her killed. He discloses this in an offhand way, as though it is of no real consequence. Without even a trace of remorse, he goes on to discuss the woman that he is presumably considering for his next wife, and then points out the statue of Neptune. At this point in the poem, it becomes clear that the duke is completely mad. The disconnect between his conscience and his actions is so complete that he does not even hesitate for a moment to reveal what he has done; it does not seem wrong to him in the least. As he discusses the murder in the same

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My Last Dutchess. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 03:14, March 29, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1696367.html