To Be Determined Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

To Be Determined - Essay Example ed 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? The main overall theme of both Robert Browning poems â€Å"My Last Duchess† (hereafter known as â€Å"Duchess†) and â€Å"Porphyria’s Lover† (hereafter known as â€Å"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 â€Å"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 â€Å"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 â€Å"Happy and proud; at last I knew Porphyria worshippd me†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ). 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