porphyria's lover

Question 1

synopsis

Answer 1

● the speaker describes the violently foul weather
● a woman called porphyria enters the speaker’s cottage
● she removes her damp clothing and unties her hair
● porphyria tells the speaker how much she loves him
● the speaker doesn’t know what to do with his knowledge that she is in love with him
● he decides to strangle her with her own hair
● the speaker insists that she didn’t feel any pain
● he then spends all night lying with her body and proudly announces that god hasn’t stopped him

Question 2

context

Answer 2

• written during the victorian era when female sexuality was still a taboo topic
• porphyria is a rare disease - abnormal metabolism of blood pigment haemoglobin. the disease causes hallucinations, implying that the narrative is unreliable
• browning is famous for writing dramatic monologues

Question 3

structure and form

Answer 3

• dramatic monologue: there is only one person telling the story to a silent audience. it is a recount of his emotions during an event after it has occurred
• chronological order and a lack of stanzas suggests a series of events that seem natural to the speaker
• first person narrative: it the speakers pov rather than porphyria’s
• strict ABABB rhyme scheme and iambic tetrameter to highlight the speaker’s portrayed madness and unbalanced mind + their turbulent relationship
• iambic tetrameter: four per line
  missing iamb = lack of heartbeat

Question 4

themes

Answer 4

obsessive love, secret love, pain, death, unrequited love, desire, longing

Question 5

“sullen”, “tore”, “vex” “spite”

Answer 5

• use of pathetic fallacy - using the storm to represent the speaker’s inner turmoil
• all have negative, violent connotations suggesting the speaker’s emotional unrest and will for violence
• they all foreshadow the violence to come

Question 6

“i listened with heart fit to break”

Answer 6

• the speaker feels desperate to see porphyria.
• he seems restless and anxious , further suggesting his obsessive feelings as his life revolves completely around her

Question 7

“and kneeled and made uo the cheerless grate / blaze up”

Answer 7

• the word choices show how the speaker’s mood changes from a cold demeanour to warmer feelings
• the phrase, “blaze up,” is symbolic of their passionate relationship and the
  personification of the “cheerless grate” clearly reveals how unhappy he is when she is not there.
• this positive change in the speaker’s mood once again highlights his obsession for porphyria as he is only happy when he is with her.

Question 8

“and, last, she sat down by my side / and called me / when no voice replied”

Answer 8

• the repetitive structure of the list of things that porphyria does when she enters the cabin ends when she goes to the speaker
• the separation of the word “last” via use of commas suggests that the speaker feels undervalued and that he is her last priority
• he then doesn’t respond, suggesting a lack of communication and conflict in their relationship. he takes advantage of her naivety by exerting power of her by making her come to him when he is silent and moody

Question 9

“murmuring how she loved me”

Answer 9

• the word “murmuring” suggests that the speaker feels she is not as committed to him as he is to her. her murmuring indicates that she doesn’t fully mean what she is saying
• alternatively the dramatic monologue makes the word ambiguous. her actions so far -sneaking away to meet him, being sexually suggestive (subverting gender roles) - suggest that she is fully committed. this allows his obsession to grow into something more sinister

Question 10

“and give herself to me forever”

Answer 10

• his obsession and desire to be with her changes into a need to possess her
• the phrase “give herself” highlights the speaker’s feelings of inadequacy and emasculation. he wants to take back the control that he lacks in the relationship. by surrendering herslf to him, he would be able to secure that power in the relationship and possess her.
• the finality of the word “forever” foreshadows that he will succeed in possessing her

Question 11

“at last i knew / porphyria worshipped me”

Answer 11

• religious imagery suggests his bloated hubristic attitude
• there has been in a shift in attitude from him looking up to porphyria to being overtaken by the thought of possessing her and the impression of being worshipped motivates him to act

Question 12

“that moment she was mine, mine, fair / perfectly pure and good”

Answer 12

• repetition of the word “mine, mine” emphasises how important it is to the speaker for him to feel like porphyria belongs to him. his inferiority complex (and social status) is cured by his violent desires.
• his choice of words such as “fair”,”perfectly pure” and “good” suggests that he idealises her supposed innocence and purity. they all have connotations of reverence, further suggesting the speaker’s worship of her.
• however, his view of her strengthens the idea that he is deluded as those aren’t the words people would use to describe an adulteress like porphyria in the victorian era.
• he enjoys belittling and infantalising her to make himself superior

Question 13

“in one long yellow string i would / three times her little throat around / and strangled her.”

Answer 13

• the playful and repetitive rhyme scheme lulls the reader into a false sense of security which is in contrast to the brutal action taking place
• he uses enjambment of “and strangled her” to deliver such a blow to the unsuspecting reader.
• the act being so casually suggests, not only a lack of remorse but, that the speaker has been driven to insanity by his obsessive love for her
• he weaponizes something she tried to use to seduce him
• “one long yellow string” is a metaphorical representation of a noose so it seems like he is her executioner her who is punishing her.
• caesura - finality of the full stop after “i strangled her.” is representative of the end of her life

Question 14

“no pain felt she; / i am quite sure she felt no pain”

Answer 14

• the speaker first justifies his actions by deluding himself into believing that he did not cause her any pain. the repetition of the phrase “no pain” justifies the act for the speaker; as if he has caused no pain he has done nothing wrong. his insanity continues to grow even after he has killed her
• he goes on to convince himself that he has done the right thing, describing her physical reactions when he loosens her hair from around her neck. he mistakenly reads these reactions as signs of life, suggesting he feels he has given her new life, freeing her from the strict rules of victorian society

Question 15

“her cheek once more / blushed beneath my burning kiss”

Answer 15

• necrophilia - he is kissing her corpse and by proclaiming that she is blushing, he justifies his actions despite the fact that corpses cannot blush (sense of irony)
• the word ‘burning’ connotes destruction, violence, passion and secretiveness
• the plosive ‘b’ sound harsh and violent and may even refer to the sound of a heartbeat as if the speaker is trying to convince himself that her heartbeat remains

Question 16

“that all it scorned at once is fled / and i, its love is gained instead!”

Answer 16

• porphyria has become a mere object in the eyes of the speaker. he refers
  to her head alone, as if it is something separate from her body.
  the use of the pronoun ‘it’ is extremely impersonal and is further proof of the speaker objectifying porphyria. She is no longer the subject of his obsession or worship; instead that obsession led him to
  want to possess her forever.
• furthermore, this is another example of the change in roles for the characters. at the beginning of the poem the speaker referred to himself
  only through his relationship to porphyria. he now uses pronouns that desribe her through him (structural symmetry)
• use of exclamative suggests his sense of excitement and achievement rather than remorse or guilt. he is enveloped in triumphant arrogance and satisfaction

Question 17

“and yet god has not said a word”

Answer 17

• religious imagery suggests that he truly believes that god approves of his actions
• polysyndeton and anaphora of ‘and’ to portray his spiralling satisfaction + lots of enjambment to highlight his fast paced, continuous thought process
• the final 4 lines are in present tense - focusing/savouring the moment
• exclamative to show his unwavering belief that what he has done is right
• defiant tone - defending himself and challenging the reader
• the ambiguity of the last line suggests that he is asking his victorian reader as to who is more in the wrong

Question 18

porphyria’s over / when we two parted

Answer 18

+ in porphyria’s lover, browning makes explicit references to death “three times her little throat around//and strangled her” and in when we two parted, byron makes more implicit references to death when comparing his relationship to it - “a knell in mine ear”

• in porphyria’s lover, the speaker describes his body in a way which makes her seem alive in the metaphor “laughed the blue eyes without a stain” or “smiling rosy little head”. however in when we two parted, his love is made to seem physically dead. uses the semantic field of death “pale grew thy cheek”, “in silence i grieve”

Question 19

porphyria’s lover / sonnet 29 ‘i think of thee’

Answer 19

+ unhealthy fixation on the object of their affection. sonnet 29 shows this through active verbs of ‘twine’ and ‘bud’ which imply that her love is smothering and browning objectifies porphyria - “her smooth white shoulder bare” and “spread o’er all her yellow
hair”
+ there is natural imagery used in “porphyria’s lover” in the pathetic fallacy used in “sullen wind”, “tore the elm-tops down
for spite” and “to vex the lake”. in “sonnet 29”, barrett browning uses the extended metaphor of nature. her love is symbolised
by “wild vines, about a tree” and “the straggling green”
+ in both poems, the speaker is unfulfilled and then they eventually become fulfilled in their relationship. In “porphyria’s lover”, initially, the speaker is unsettled by porphyria’s autonomy which is shown in “too weak, for all her heart’s endeavour, // to set its struggling passion free”. eventually the speaker
is shown to be satisfied in the exclamatory “and I, its love, am gained
instead!”. likewise, in “sonnet 29”, the speaker is initially desperate to be
with her lover and this is shown by the poem beginning with “i think of
thee!”, a repetition of the title, which shows how she is only able to think of
her lover rather than be with him. The turning point in the sonnet however,
leads to a subverted repetition of the opening line in “i do not think of thee – I am too near thee.”, this shows the speaker’s change in situation
from disillusionment to satisfaction.

• In “sonnet 29”, the speaker recognises that her obsession is unhealthy for
  their relationship. at the turning point in the sonnet, she states that “i will
  not have my thoughts instead of thee” showing how she admits that
  thinking constantly about her lover will ruin their relationship. the speaker
  in “porphyria’s lover” does not have the same self awareness and this is
  shown by the final hubristic line “and yet god has not said a word!” which demonstrates the speaker’s lack of remorse.
• which demonstrates the speaker’s lack of remorse.
• In “sonnet 29”, barrett browning employs the rigid sonnet form whilst
  browning’s poem is continuous and not separated into stanzas. this
  shows that “sonnet 29” is a more conventional depiction of love than
  “porphyria’s lover” which also sporadically employs iambic tetrameter.

Question 20

porphyria’s lover/farmer’s bride

Answer 20

+ the speakers in both poems are similarly characterised as a possessive,
objectifying male. browning’s speaker fulfils this role because of his
assumption of porphyria’s feelings in “no pain felt she” and the repetition
in “she was mine, mine”. mew shapes a similar speaker by showing him
presenting his wife as a small animal in “flying like a hare”, “like a
mouse” and “shy as a leveret”. given that the speaker is a farmer so
takes advantage of animals to make a living, this implies that he is abusing
his wife.
+ the type of love presented in both poems is destructive. this is shown in
“porphyria’s lover” in the physical destruction of porphyria in “her head,
which droops”. In “the farmer’s bride”, the woman is mentally rather than
physically destroyed which is shown in her silence in “she sleeps up in
the attic there // alone, poor maid.”
+ both poems are similarly long, showing the speaker’s obsessive
tendencies.
+ in “porphyria’s lover”, browning shows how the speaker’s love is not
reciprocated in porphyria’s non committal “murmuring how she loved
me”. similarly, in “the farmer’s bride”, mew shows the farmer’s bride
disregard for her husband through her self imposed isolation in “she
sleeps up in the attic there”

• the farmer’s bride speaker seems more aware of the suffering he is
  inflicting than the porphyria’s lover speaker.
• mew shows her speaker to be somewhat aware of the suffering he is
  inflicting on his lover through his confessions “too young maybe” and
  “i’ve hardly heard her speak at all.”. The speaker of “porphyria’s lover” is
  however, less self aware. he seems to believe that porphyria enjoys or has
  benefitted from his actions. Browning uses lexis from the semantic field of
  romantic love and alliteration in “blushed bright beneath my burning
  kiss:”.