Last Duchess

Jealousy, Rage, and Possession in Browning's "My Last Duchess"

Robert Browning's "My Last Duchess" emphasizes Victorian ideals of women and allows readers to understand how they were objectified. In this macabre poem, Browning uses the themes of jealousy, rage, and possessiveness to describe what motivated the Duke to behave as he did. In the poem, the unnamed narrator has transformed his wife into an object on numerous occasions and appears to pride himself on controlling women, and nonchalantly boasts to the emissary making arrangements for his next marriage how he controlled his previous wife and the consequences of her not obeying him. The narrator remains oblivious to his own faults throughout the poem and focuses only adding to his collection of prized possession, whether they are actual objects or wives.

In "My Last Duchess," the narrator objectifies his wife while she is alive and after she has died....
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