40 pages • 1 hour read
My Last Duchess
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Themes
The Interplay of Pride, Power, and a Need for Control
“My Last Duchess” is exemplary of the kind of psychological portraiture Browning accomplished in his dramatic monologues. The speaker is a Duke delivering a narrative about his late wife, and through it emerges the picture of a cold, proud man, with an exaggerated need for power and control.
At the very outset the duke is presented as a proud man. He shows off a portrait of his late wife, a “wonder” (Line 3) created by a reputed painter. He even admits to name-dropping the artist “by design” (Line 6), and it is evident he takes pride in the art. A similar pride is reflected in the duke claiming the pedigree of a “nine-hundred-years-old name” (Line 33) or later displaying a sculpture cast in bronze by yet another famous artist.
This pride translates into a degree of self-importance. For instance, the duke expects a large dowry from the father of his potential bride—not because he needs the money but because it befits his status. This self-importance is seen within his marital relationship as well. He confesses to being displeased by his late wife’s similar treatment of everything she encounters. Her smiles and blushes bestowed equally upon receiving a simple gift from a visitor, being paid an innocent compliment, and the duke’s affection himself, are insulting to the duke, who expects unique and elevated treatment; he is deeply jealous of his wife’s undiscerning attention to all and sundry.
The jealousy the duke feels, however, is significantly unrelated to romantic attention or ideas of infidelity. The duke acknowledges that the duchess viewed compliments as courtesy, not flirtation; he also describes how she responded similarly to viewing a beautiful sunset, or riding on her mule. The duke’s jealousy is tied to his pride and self-importance and the resultant need for power and control that he experiences. He exhibits this need for control even beyond the duchess’s life, where no one but him is allowed to draw back the curtain covering his late wife’s portrait.
This interrelationship between the duke’s offended pride and need to demonstrate power and control inhibit him from directly addressing his displeasure with his wife; instead, he gives “commands” (Line 45) that take care of the issue for him. The duke is so self-assured in his own power, he seemingly confesses to having ordered his wife’s murder to an emissary from his potential future bride’s family. He is not worried about this harming his prospects; rather, he is confident it will serve as a just warning to ensure appropriate behavior on his future bride’s part. In this manner, Browning weaves together a portrait of a man driven to murderous jealousy motivated simultaneously by pride, power, and a need for control.
The Exaggerated Importance of Social Status and Hierarchy
The title of the poem, “My Last Duchess,” indicates the presence of aristocracy at the very outset. Furthermore, the first lines indicate the speaker is a Duke, thus establishing the social strata within which the monologue occurs. However, the Duke’s title is not a chance occurrence; rather, it is a manner of deep importance to him and plays a key role in the events outlined in the poem.
The Duke emerges as a man who pays great heed to hierarchy in social and personal matters. With respect to the former, he flaunts his “nine-hundred-years-old name” (Line 33), claiming it a “gift” (Line 33) he bestowed upon his late wife. He currently seeks the hand of a count’s daughter, and although a count is lower in status than a duke, the former is still an aristocratic title. He also expects a substantial dowry from the count, not because he has need for the money—in fact, he reiterates his primary “object” (Line 53) to be the count’s beautiful daughter. The expectation of a substantial dowry is merely one befitting his social status.
This same importance to hierarchy is seen in the duke’s personal relationships. The root cause of his displeasure with his late wife was the latter’s lack of discretion in how she treated everything around her, including him. That she smiled and blushed with equal joy at him as she did everything else was an insult to the elevated space he occupied, both as a husband and as a duke from an esteemed family.
Indeed, the latter only fueled the fire, as the duke viewed his last duchess as having disrespected his “gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name” (Line 33) by treating it the same as “anybody’s gift” (Line 34). Historical sources from which Browning seemed to have drawn inspiration for the duke and the monologue also substantiate this view. Duke Alfonso II d’Este, on whom the duke in the poem is based, belonged to the prestigious Este family, far superior in status than his first wife Lucrezia’s family (See: Historical Context). The Medicis having been a “nouveau riche” banking family would further explain the duchess’s seeming lack of discretion and disregard of hierarchy.
Ultimately, it can be said that the central conflict that drives the duke to have his wife murdered stems from the exaggerated importance he places on social status and hierarchy, which were violated by the duchess’s unwitting lack of discretion.
Values and Perceptions Surrounding the Victorian Woman
Robert Browning fashioned the character of the duke on Duke Alfonso II d’Este, a historical character from the 16th century. Nevertheless, the duke’s narrative about his late wife seems to accurately reflect the values and perceptions surrounding women in Browning’s own time.
The Victorian woman enjoyed very little power or autonomy in society. She was seen primarily as an object, especially upon marriage, meant to serve her husband’s desires in totality. A Victorian woman had no legal or financial rights within marriage. All the money and land that came with her legally passed onto her husband upon marriage; her right to sexual consent and refusal was abrogated by the marital contract, and while she was expected to remain sexually faithful to one man her whole life, the same was not expected of her husband. Infidelity on the man’s part did not grant a woman enough grounds to seek a divorce. In all aspects, the Victorian woman was seen as little more than an object to be controlled, possessed, and discarded beyond use by a man.
These patriarchal values are seen reflected in the duke’s relationship with his late wife. In life, he demanded her subservience; in death, he continues to control her in that no one but him is allowed to draw back the curtain covering her portrait. The duke further views her, and any wife, as a possession to own befitting his status. He values the portrait of his first wife as much as he does any object of art in his collection, speaking of it and displaying it in the same vein as a rare bronze statue.
Additionally, just as one does with any object that loses its value, the duke discards his first wife and moves on to the next with cold detachment. He does not participate in the duchess’s murder himself, instead he gives orders to others to do it. He seemingly admits to this to an emissary from his future bride’s family, then seamlessly moves on from the subject of his late wife to that of the waiting company below. He also has no qualms about having revealed this to the emissary, perhaps intending for the story to serve as warning to his future bride. After all, the Victorian woman and wife existed purely to serve at the husband’s pleasure, and the duke’s narrative is but instruction on what pleases him as a husband. The narrative thus serves to reflect the values and perceptions surrounding the Victorian woman and the era in which the poem was penned.
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