In this poem Browning seems to present a disturbed man who has apparently found a women who says she loves him. Browning begins his poem with a description of gloomy weather and destruction which forecasts the events of his poem.
"The sullen wind was soon awake,
It tore the elm tops down for spite,
And did its worst to vex the lake:" (662)
When Porphyria comes into the cottage she seems to provide a release from the rough times. She provides a release for the narrator, yet he is too selfish to appreciate what she could bring. He instead wants to guarantee that she will be by his side forever.
"In one long yellow string I wound
Three times her little throat around,
And I strangled her. No pain felt she;" (663)
So instead of appreciating the love that Porphyria had brought to him, the narrator simply kills her to maintain her by his side. The title of the poem made me originally think that it would be about a true love, but instead it was disturbing story of two people. It was not love because he killed Porphyria. In the end the narrator seems to justify the killing by saying that God did not react so it must have been alright.
"And thus we sit together now,
And all night long we have not stirred,
And yet God has not said a word."
It is intriguing to me the stability of the narrator in this poem. It is apparent that he is not stable, but how much of the poem is changed by his instability. I mean did the girl even say that she loved him, or did he just make this up as a rationale to kill her to have her by her side forever.
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1 comment:
Jeremy,
Very perceptive observation at the end of this post! With Browning's dramatic monologues we have the opportunity to see the world through another person's perspective, but we are also trapped there, and cannot obtain any external, objective confirmation for what the speaker claims.
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