Browning’s “My Last Duchess” - Character of the Duchess
One major obstacle in
analyzing the character of the Duchess in Browning’s “My Last Duchess” is that
whatever information we get about her comes from the most unreliable source,
that is, her husband, the Duke, who is her murderer, and who is trying to justify
his action in the most high-handed manner. A dramatic monologue reveals the
(psychological) intricacies of the character of the speaker and is never
authentic about the persons and/or subjects it deals with. Whatever information
we get about the Duchess is refracted through the crooked vision of a powerful
and eloquent maniac. Browning appears to have modeled the late wife of the Duke
after Lucrezia de’ Medici, a daughter of Cosimo de’ Medici, Duke of Florence
and Tuscany. The Duchess died under suspicious circumstances, just two years
after he married her. She may have been poisoned. The Duke says the Duchess
enjoyed the company of other men and implies that she was unfaithful. By all
probability that is untrue, at least, the Duke provides no direct evidence.
To unearth the semblance of
the character of the Duchess, the readers need to explore the story behind the
Duke’s vain boasting. He describes the painting in the manner of an art-critic
- “the depth and passion in the earnest glance…… reproduce the faint half-flush
that fades along the throat…” He continues to report that she used to bring the
red spot of joy on her cheek not only when he gave a ‘favorable’ (look) on her
breast, but also when she saw any common person object or event. He says that “her
looks went everywhere”, that she would thank and appreciate anything or anyone,
that she was too easily impressed, and that she used to smile at anyone who
passed by her. No one will be ever convinced that to smile, to thank, to be
interested, to be shy, or to talk to people is a crime, or immorality. No one
will believe that a wife should look only at her husband, except in societies
that believe that all women are naturally evil!
Her other “crimes” are that
she is ‘too soon made glad’ and that she is not as discriminating as him, ‘she
liked whate’er/She looked on and her looks went everywhere.’ The image of her
wandering eye again shows the jealousy of the Duke. Whereas he could not
control what she looked at or what she liked in life, he can now control who
looks at her by containing her behind a curtain. The girl seems to find some
joy in life, something that the Duke never shares. She finds beauty in
‘cherries’, ‘the dropping of the daylight’ and in her ‘white mule’. To the Duke
these are ordinary objects beneath his notice; he cannot bear that she finds
pleasure in them. Perhaps he cannot bear that she finds pleasure in anything
other than him. He certainly feels that she does not appreciate what he was
done for her, his ‘gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name’. Thus, in the words
of a critic, the Duke “enshrines the Duchess as a model of spontaneity and
innocent joy and a victim of her egotistical husband.”.......................................................................
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