My Last Duchess: Robert Browning 1842

Question 1

Context

Answer 1

• written in Victorian era
• religion was being challenged
• battes for gender equality started

Question 2

Form & structure

Answer 2

• Enjambent: adds to realism of the poem as it is meant to be a real conversation
  or- reflects Duke’s lack of control over himself and anger
• Iambic pentameter: contrasts with enjambment as Duke has control over others but not himself

Question 3

‘I gave commands; the all smiles stopped together’

Answer 3

• Euphemism: Duke ordered wife’s murder

- cold language reflects that he only sees her as a possession

Question 4

‘how shall I say?’

Answer 4

• Duke struggling to express irritation
• reflects anger
• even the powerful struggle

Question 5

‘(none puts the curtain I have drawn for you, but I)’

Answer 5

• Metaphor: the secrets hidden behind the curtain, what happened to the wife when she was with him

Question 6

‘There’s my last Duchess painted on the wall,

Looking as if she were alive. I call’

Answer 6

• Rhyming couplets: used throughout the whole of the poem

- reflects sense of control he seems to have