My Last Duchess

1. Vocabulary

(25) Favor: overgenerous preferential treatment.

(27) Officious: assertive of authority in an annoyingly domineering way.

(49) Munificence: larger or more generous than is usual or necessary.

2. The Duke is speaking towards the Duke's fiance's father's workers. These people aren't necessarily servants but are people of the court who do official business like running information to others. These people are there to set up the wedding of their Court's daughter. The Duke before getting to the task at hand, shows them around his palace, and tells them the story of his last wife who he killed. Whether or not this has any importance towards these people can be debated because it could be that he wants them to know that it won't happen again or that it's a possibility that it could. He doesn't want a wife like he had had before, he wants someone that will give him their full attention - he could be saying he won't put up with it again, and if it does, with or without the lady, he will still have her father's dowry.

3. The Duke is a rich, selfcentered man who needs and craves respect. He wants a wife whose only interest is in him, no exceptions. The man doesn't express why his wife upsets him, so she continues to live as she did, until he couldn't take it any longer and decided to the best option was to kill her. From this we see dramatic irony, in a way that we know what the Duke wants, but no one else really does.

4. His last Duchess was outgoing and an optimistic character who smiled at anyone. The Duke, an opposite character who liked to keep to himself, wanted to do the same with his wife - not share her. He's jealous that she flirts with everyone she comes across, which he seems to consider inappropriate. The Duke doesn't like that she gives her attention to anyone, and blushes when people compliment her - even if it's innocent. The Duke must have some sexual jealously because he feels that he's as ordinary as anyone else in her eyes - as her husband he doesn't feel special.

5. The Duke's love for art can be questioned by the different pieces he shows to some of the Count's court. Is it that he loves the art itself or the history behind the art that he's actually attached to? The painting of the lady, his previous wife, was a story that he doesn't seem to be afraid to tell. His self-importance is way too high to worry about telling his future family that he killed his last wife. Another important piece of art is the statue of Neptune, the God of the sea, who controls the sea and who symbolically connects to the Duke. With the idea of conquering the sea, Neptune, like the Duke, wants to conquer and control people's passions or lives. The Duke interferes with his wifes life by killing her because of his lack of control over her.

6. How the duchess dies is completely irrelevant towards the poem. However, what is relevant is the fact that the Duke tells the Count's court that he had killed his last wife. The big situational irony is that you wouldn't think that someone would reveal something like that to people that could tell his soon to be wife or her father.

The dramatic irony of this poem is that Browning considers the Duke to be crazy mad. He's not expected to kill his wife for such a silly reason like her being nice and smiling at others. Instead of talking to her, or just accepting the fact that he had actually married a sweet girl, he just gets rid of her.