My Last Duchess :: essays research papers

A dramatic monologue is defined as a poem in which a single character is speechmaking to a person or persons- usually about an important topic. The spend of goods and services of most dramatic monologues is to provide the reader with an overall or indicate view of the characters personality. A great poet can use punctuation and rhythm to make the poem appear as if it were an substantial conversation. Robert Browning, known as the father of the dramatic monologue, does this in his poem, My Last Duchess. The Duke of Ferrara, the utterer in My Last Duchess, is portrayed as a jealous, arrogant serviceman who is precise controlling over his wife.The Duke of Ferrara was made jealous by everything the duchess did, no matter how unimportant it was. He was especially jealous of Fra Pandolf, the man who multicoloured the duchess in the poem. A woman should be pleased simply by her husband, as was not the case with the duchess and Fra Pandolf. She was too easily impressed by the catam ount ( draw off 23). Fra Pandolf was not the only man that made the duke jealous. Everyone who passed the duchess received much the resembling smile as the duke (line 44). The duke expected to be the only man to receive a smile from his wife. Another aspect of the dukes character communicate in the poem is his condescending attitude. Two times in the poem the duke needlessly told the names of the artists who created the masterpieces that he owned (lines 3 & 56). He felt favourable position over the emissary he was speaking to by dropping these names. The duke addressed the emissary as a never read stranger (line 6). Not only was it patronizing for the duke to call him a stranger, however he called him unintelligent too.The terzetto character trait of the duke is his controlling behavior. In lines nine and ten he told the emissary that no one puts by the curtain that he had drawn for him but the duke himself. He felt the need to control who ever looked at the scene of the duche ss. The main evidence of his dominating behavior is in line 46. The line reads, then all smiles stopped together. The line is ambiguous, but the most potential interpretation is that the duke had his wife killed. The poem can be interpreted in several different ways, but in all cases the duke is a very controlling man.