What is the main message of My Last Duchess?
What is the main message of My Last Duchess?
Major Themes in “My Last Duchess”: Jealousy, hatred, and power are the major themes of this poem. Browning has presented the character of a duke who wants to rule his woman with an iron fist. He talks about his late wife and details the reasons why he did not like her.
What does the rhetorical question in lines 44 45 suggest about the duke?
What does the rhetorical question in lines 44–45 suggest about the Duke? The Duke acknowledges that the Duchess smiled “no doubt” (line 43) whenever she passed him. However, the Duke perceives that other people also received “[m]uch the same smile” (line 45).
Who is FRA pandolf quizlet?
Who is Fra Pandolf? A painter who did a portrait of the last Duchess. What does the Duke report Fra Pandolf might have said to the Duchess? When she blushed, he might have said it was her cloak that was too heavy on her and could never dream of capturing it with paint.
What message does the duke want to convey to the emissary?
In “My Last Duchess”, what does the Duke want to tell the envoy? The Duke probably wants to do two things: show off his acquisitions (what he considers his late wife), considering he is especially proud of them. But more importantly, he wants to send a covert…
What is the conclusion of My Last Duchess?
My last Duchess summary tells us how he thinks she did not respect his lineage. Thus, he decides to lesson her on loving everything so easily. Consequently, we learn that the Duke probably commanded to kill her. After that, he casually gets back to the business at hand.
Who was the Duke of Ferrara speaking to and in what context?
In the poem, he’s talking about his first wife Lucrezia de’ Medici, who died under suspicious circumstances shortly after marrying the Duke. In the poem the Duke is speaking to an emissary who is negotiating the Duke’s next marriage to the daughter of another powerful family.
What lines suggest the ultimate fate of the last Duchess?
The lines “I gave commands; / smiles stopped together” suggest that the Duke somehow, directly or indirectly, brought about the death of the last Duchess.
What is the significance of the curtain The Duke refers to in the painting?
What is the hiding the portrait behind the curtain symbolic of? A life hidden away from truth. Even in death, the Duke hides the Duchess, another way of controlling her existence.
Who is the Duke of Ferrara talking to in the poem?
an emissary
In the poem the Duke is speaking to an emissary who is negotiating the Duke’s next marriage to the daughter of another powerful family. He is showing his visitor around his palace and stops in front of a painting of his late wife.
Why was the duke dissatisfied with his wife?
In the next few lines, the duke argues that his wife was “too easily impressed” by the people around her. Moreover, she seemed to find happiness everywhere and in everything: She liked whate’er she looked on, and her looks went everywhere.
Why is the curtain drawn only by the duke?
The duke keeps the painting of the duchess behind a curtain as a means of postmortem control. That is, he wants control over who gets to see her image. As the reader comes to realize, the duke did not feel he had this full control over his wife when she…
