Power and Jealousy: Analyzing 'My Last Duchess'

My Last Duchess is about a duchess. Our persona of the poem is the husband of this duchess, duke. The occasion is that the duke speaks to the portrait of his dead wife but as we reading the poem, we learn that the duke himself killed his wife and the poem is a story of the murder. Also, he mentions that he wants to marry somebody else too. He is even talking about the money that he will give his next duchess.

The idea of the poem is mainly the duke has power and he turns his duchess into an artistic object because of his jealousy. She was happy with everyone and everything but Duke just wants her to be happy only with himself. He thinks that The Duchess is not appreciating him. He thinks that he can only tame her by killing her and turning her into an artistic object.

The type of ‘My Last Duchess’ is a dramatic monolog and a fictional poem. Through the use of language, the poet makes us think. Poet uses euphemism and metaphors in the poem. Also, the poem is ironic. So, we can say that he uses very powerful language but we can understand it. The persona doesn’t directly say I killed her. Instead, he says, “I gave commands then all smiles stopped together” he makes us think by not directly saying what he is done. Also, we see the contrast between the Duke and the portrait of his last Duchess. Duke is alive but his Duchess is not alive, she now works of art.

We feel the drama going over the poem. One of the themes of the poem is violence. Even though we don’t read full of violence, we still understand the murder. The other theme is jealousy because he killed his last duchess due to his extreme jealousy of his last duchess. The structure of the poem is like the poet writes about a fictional story full of ironies. The poem is very powerful and strong. The language is very simple and understandable. When I understand that Duke killed his last Duchess. It makes me a bit shocked because I wasn’t expecting that. He is talking about his last duchess well but later when he talks about his next duchess, we understand he sees his duchess as an object immediately. But still, it is a very powerful poem. 

My Last Duchess by Robert Browning