My Last Duchess

The mood and tone of My Last Duchess and the character of the narrator are immediately and concisely revealed in Browning's (1842) first line, "That's my last Duchess painted on the wall, / Looking as if she were alive" (1-2). Kennedy (1982) claims that "Browning may have modeled his speaker after Alonzo, Duke of Ferrara" (295). In this poem, the speaker narrates an account of his former wife, the titular Duchess of the poem, who the speaker has murdered. While the opening line demonstrates the materialistic, controlling, and murderous nature of the narrator, Browning uses a variety of poetic devices from rhythm and imagery to allusion and symbolism to fully characterize the nature of his speaker. In the end, the poem is wholly ironic in that the speaker finds himself a maligned and abused man, when in actuality he is a remorseless, controlling, and materialistic murderer.

The poem is in the form of a dramatic monologue, with the speaker describing what he found to be his dead wife's lascivious behavior. He speaks of his deceased wife as a woman whose smiles were granted too generously to others than him, "Sir, �twas not / Her husband's presence only, called that spot / Of joy into the Duchess' cheek" (Browning 1842, 13-15). Browning uses irony through having the speaker act as if he were a wronged husband, when he is a materialistic, manipulative and controlling murderer. We see this clearly in the use of language and imagery. The

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pany of another. Further, the structure of the poem illustrates the speaker's controlling nature. He often directs or gives orders to the person to whom he is speaking like "Will't please you sit", "Will't please you rise", and "Nay, we'll go / Together down, sir" (Browning 1842, 5, 47, 53-54). The structure of the poem also is used to show that the speaker may have feelings of anxiety over the knowledge that he murdered his former wife. Browning uses a technique known as enjambment, in which the lines run over each other. He uses this most notably when the speaker is referring to his dead wife, as if such talk makes him quite nervous, "Looking as if she were alive. I call / That piece a wonder, now: Fra Pandolf's hands / Worked busily a day, and there she stands" (Browning 1842, 2-4). The speaker against demonstrates his controlling and manipulative behavior when, near the end of the poem, the person to whom he is speaking attempts to go down the stairs but the speaker insists he will accompany him. The Duke does his best to portray himself in a positive light in the poem, but such poetics belie such a personality. All the while speaking to the other person, the Duke focuses on what a great job was done by the painter in ca

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