“Porphyria’s Lover” by Robert Browning was a very dark read for me, the mental state of the man in the poem is quite disturbing.
“The poem starts out by giving us a backdrop of the scene.
The rain set early in to-night,
The sullen wind was soon awake,
It tore the elm-tops down for spite,
And did its worst to vex the lake:” (ln 1-4)
These lines set the tone for the rest of the poem. I get a mental image of a rain beginning and shaking the tops of trees, and slowly it builds up to a violent storm that “tore the elm-tops down for spite.” The man at this time is waiting for his lover to come to him. When she arrives she brings warmth and security to the man.
“When glided in Porphyria; straight
She shut the cold out and the storm,
And kneeled and made the cheerless grate
Blaze up, and all the cottage warm;”
The emotion from the black storm raging outside is eased by a soothing wamth and sense of safety when Porphyria arrives. But there is a problem still that looms,
“And, last, she sat down by my side
And called me. When no voice replied,
She put my arm about her waist,”
He has this thought in his head that he always has to come last, and he doesn’t like it, he wants to be first. This is why he is upset when she calls him and he does not respond. Porphyria knows something is wrong so she tries to console him and make him feel better, because although he cannot believe it, she does care for him. Then on line 21 a change in his feelings toward her begins. She begins to tell him how she cannot fight the love she has for him anymore, and wants to give herself fully to him.
“Murmuring how she loved me---she
Too weak, for all her heart’s endeavour,
To set its struggling passion free
From pride, and vainer ties dissever,
And give herself to me for ever.”
He finally realizes that she wants to be with him and him only, but he isn’t sure he can trust her words, so he looks to something he can trust, her eyes.
“Be sure I looked up at her eyes
Happy and proud; at last I knew
Porphyria worshipped me; surprise”
To his surprise she was telling the truth, he had finally gained her full love. At this moment so many things are racing through his head, “she really loves me”, “how do I keep this love for ever?”, “Is she just playing with my heart again?”, “Is this a love that will last one night?” After thinking about all of these possibilities he decides the only way to ease his mind is to kill her in this moment of true love and freeze this emotion he is experiencing, forever.
“A thing to do, and all her hair
In one long yellow string I wound
Three times her little throat around,
And strangled her. No pain felt she;
I am quite sure she felt no pain.”
The man is trying to give himself some validation that he is doing the right thing by telling himself that she felt no pain, meanwhile she is being strangled to death. And to cap it all off, the final image we are given here is the man sitting with the woman’s head on his shoulder with her eyes open. They are both not moving, he is just enjoying the moment as long as he can.
“And thus we sit together now,
And all night long we have not stirred,
And yet God has not said a word!”
He again gives him self validation for his job well done by saying that God has not said a word, so I must have done well.
4 comments:
Andrew,
Practically everyone who wrote a post on Robert Browning focused on this poem--it clearly leaves an impression. Good close attention to the text in your synopsis and analysis of it.
Andrew,
I like how you use effective quotations in this post. I also found that this was a "dark read", to quote you. I actually read it over several times to make sure I was understanding what I read. Nice attention to detail!
Andrew
I like all the quotes you use to make your arguement. I agree with you when you say "the mental state of the man in the poem is quite disturbing." But I do believe that is what draws me to it so much. While I was disturbed by this work I also really enjoyed it. I was confused by several things in this poem and after some research I found out that Porphyria was not his wife but the woman he was having an affair with. I thought it was interesting to go back and read the poem with that knowledge and even after reading your blog I feel I have learned even more that I had not known.
Andrew,
My question for this passage is how disturbed do you think this mans mental state allows the reader to trust anything he says. I mean is the girl really in love with the guy or is it just his imagination.
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