How Are Women Portrayed in Robert Browning’s ‘Porphyria Lover’?

John Richetti argues that: “the early eighteenth-century amatory novella…outs one part of the antithesis I am working with: …the heroines are visited by overwhelming and ineffable…passion, obsessions that preclude self-examination and make a mockery of agency and self-consciousness” (336-337) in his essay “Ideas and Voices: The New Novel in Eighteenth-Century England.” Her mother, upon finding her daughter ill, feels “Pity and Tenderness” (Haywood 69), which is then “succeeded by an adequate Shame and Indignation” (69). Her mother is a representation of the exact ideas that the protagonist feared hearing of her now damaged reputation. Her mother hears Beauplaisir’s story after finding out the truth of her daughter’s schemes. She plans to have her daughter and Beauplaisir marry, to save her daughter from dishonour, but he knows nothing of his actions with the protagonist. Rather, the mother sends her daughter to a monastery in France because she finds him not at fault. Haywood demonstrates how women are at fault for the ruin of their virtue and honour, even though the sexual acts were mutual and consensual (except the first one, for the

Harold states that the masculine form of her name is Porphyry, a representative in the school of Neoplatonism (20). He concludes that, "Porphyria’s lover fanatically acts in accordance with a Neoplatonic view of the world which carries him . . . into madness." This Neoplatonic thought allows him to believe he has the ability to free himself from physical limitations "through the dichotomy of his conscious self in the first half of the poem and through his physical behavior in the latter part" (21). Harold suggests the poem’s title is directly correlated to the actions and thoughts of Porphyria’ s lover.

The Wife audaciously steps onto stage and belts to her audience, “What rekketh me though folk saye vilainye,” and follows up with another loud lyric, “In wifhood wol I use myn instrument / As freely as my Makere hath it sent” (Chaucer l. 59, 155-56). Here, the Wife of Bath disregards public opinion and then frankly asserts that she—a woman in a society where male dominance even flows into the bedroom—will have sex freely. Thus, while the society and its female typecasts shush her and plead with her to passively sit in silence, the Wife of Bath boldly stands and sings loudly. If mothers want to cover their children’s eyes, they better cover their ears as well with audacious women like Madonna and the Wife of Bath around.

Women in 18th century literature often found themselves in a lose-lose situation. Men wanted seductive women that would cater to their every wish, but they also wanted virginal women to be their little housewives. In 18th century literature, women often fell into the men’s traps and succumbed to seduction. After they fell though, they would have to be punished in order to prevent women of the time period reading these stories from thinking they had too much power. One of the most powerful weapons a woman had over a man was her sexuality.

Wrapping up, Lamia shows how male idealization imposes on and limits women’s sexual identity. Against general readings of Lamia’s sexual character as the root of evil, what the analysis denotes is that Lamia places the spotlight on Keats’s sympathetic but ambiguous representation of Lamia. Though the ambiguity is recognized, the nub of the argument is that Keats does not portray female sexuality as demonic—women as the Other which may be allegorically extended to all those common people who had been Othered in England during the Romantic

This wronged situation being Porphyria not assuming her womanly position when she arrived late to meet with her lover. When she came in she started to assume the typical male role, such as placing his head on her shoulder, whereas traditionally this would have been the other way around. In the poem this was the final blow that causes him, Porphyria’s lover, to explode and reveal the abundant amount of power that he has over Porphyria. “I [Porphyria’s lover] found a thing to do, and with all her hair in one long yellow string I wound three times her little throat around and strangled her” (Browning np). He thought that this was the only thing to do, to kill Porphyria because of her non-traditional actions.

Compare the two poems ‘Porphyria’s Lover’ and ‘My Last Duchess’ by Robert Browning. What do they reveal about attitudes to women and relationships in the nineteenth century?

During the Renaissance period, sexuality impacted how people, both men and women, were treated and how they behaved. The lives of women were completely defined by the ideals of sexuality that were enforced during that time. Every area of a woman’s life from birth was influenced by outside influences rather than by they themselves. It took a particular type of woman to break past the clearly defined description of what a “Renaissance woman” should be.

In the Middle Ages premarital sex was considered as immoral and a sin. The author brings to attention the ancient customs that condemns illegitimate relationships. As his mistress quote would” be grievously punished: tortured by the sword or sold into slavery in another land” (De France 144). This showed how greatly the wrongdoing was taken, just like a crime would have.

Robert Browning, a Victorian poet, is well known for his use of dramatic monologue. Robert Browning use of dramatic monologue in his poems, “Porphyria's Lover” and “My Last Duchess” separates the speaker from the poet and allows the reader to use the speaker’s words to uncover Browning’s actual meaning (Greenblatt 1275). By using the dramatic monologue, in his poems “Porphyria's Lover” and “My Last Duchess,” Browning depicts the gender roles of the patriarchal society as seen during the Victorian era. As stated before, the Victorian era was a patriarchal society. A patriarchal society is a society in which men have all of the power and women have little to none.

She shamelessly announces her fruitful personal life and her excellent domestic “skills” to other pilgrims, and publicly despises the “virginitee” or “maidenhede” (68, 70). But this foul wife is paradoxical that she trades her body and serves men with a “feined appetite (pretended interest)”, but man also pay her back with their marital debt by their “sely instrument (blessed instrument)” and, most importantly, be enslaved by her intimacy (423, 136). Her open speech of sex demonstrates her proud, her mental satisfaction and enjoyment of her in-bed experience and her purpose of marriage is not only money but also the sex, the feeling of having the dominance. Besides that, she regards herself to be the creditor and governor of her marriage, she regards her husbands as her “dettour (debtor)”, “thral (thrall)”, she is able to “have his tribulacion (tribulation)” and she has “the power” above men “al… life upon his proper body (all life upon his own flesh)” (161-164).

​The plot line of “Porphyria’s Lover” starts off calm, but ends up to be quite gruesome. The woman, Porphyria, comes in from rainy weather and makes herself at home, “and let her damp hair fall,” / “And, at last, she sat down by my side” (Lines 14-15). It is apparent from just the beginning of the poem she is comfortable around the speaker. She lets herself in, started a fire, took off her wet clothes and sat next to the speaker. The beginning of the poem holds a seemingly romantic quality. There is a sense of familiarity between the two. He spends his time waiting in a cottage for her in more than one way. He is waiting for her to return to his cottage, as well as also waiting for her love. This romantic idea is seen

The topic of women’s equality to men has been a constant debate throughout the centuries. Women ave fought for equality and have reached many milestones and they are much more equal then they were, especially at the beginning of our nation’s history. This fight for equality has gained more support over the centuries and at this point the two sexes are more equal then they have ever been in the past however, even now, when this nation claims to be a land of equality for all, there is still inequality present. Letters written during the fight for women’s suffrage worded it this way, “Ah! how many of my sex feel in the dominion, thus unrighteously exercised over them, under the gentle appellation of protection, that what they have leaned

As an aside, initially I did not notice an assigned gender to the lover and so I wrote he/she when referencing the lover. However, upon viewing Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s painting about the poem and a closer examination of gender in the poem, I found on stanza twelve the first designation of the lover’s gender. This shows the interesting dynamic between the painting and poem that Dante Gabriel Rossetti incorporated into his

In this Poem, Sappho is revealing the true nature of her romantic thoughts. When she states, “He is more than a hero ... he is a god in my eyes,” she is describing her forced admiration for the man that is with her forbidden lover. It is this deification of the male figure which suggests this to me, that the author can only classify the male as, because her true love only deserves a god at the least. In the following lines which proceed, “The man who is allowed to sit beside you,” this confirms that she is indeed the third person in this exchange between the female, the object of her desire and the male beside her, the man she envies figuratively and who also represents an antagonistic figure here.