My Last Duchess Monologue

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Readers of “My Last Duchess” may doubt whether Duke who is the principal character in the poem has arrogance. “My Last Duchess” is a dramatic monologue written by Robert Browning. This poem is a narration by The Duke of Ferrara to an envoy of Count at his personal art gallery. The poem contains many rhetorical questions and enjambments to convey the characters to the readers. Browning’s poem bears apparent meanings so that the readers will be misleading. Consequently, it is compulsory to observe the speech, rhetoric, and tone of the poem to evaluate characters. Ultimately, the poet tried to reveal the devilish characters of the Duke and he has a number of faults, but primary of them all is his supreme arrogance as the poem reveals.
Immediately, in the first lines of the poem, the Duke is boasting about the painting at the art gallery. The Duke pulls off the curtain and shows the painting of his wife to the envoy. The Duke says, “That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall /Looking as if she were alive.” (Browning 1-2), which indicates his wife is dead and also show a lack of emotion. …show more content…

The Duke mentions the envoy’s master as “munificence” to gather his attention and apparently, he asks Count’s for a right amount of dowry. The Duke indirectly discloses everything. It is surprising that the envoy starts walking away forcing the Duke to say that “Nay, we’ll go /Together down, sir.” (53-54), which illustrates that the envoy is trying to escape from the boasting of the Duke. Additionally, he might need to report to the Count the fate of the Duke’s first wife. At the end of the poem, the Duke refers a name of an artist “Claus of Innsbruck” (56), who gave him the unique statue of horse and Neptune for him. In one angle, the Duke is apparently stating the new wife would be like the trained horse to him. These evidence highlight that the Duke is a monster who killed his wife with pure

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