Porphyria's lover
Examine the treatment of women in Porphyria’s lover
It would be easy to assume that women in Victorian England were treated badly. However, “Porphyria’s lover” suggests that his idea springs from society’s control of women. At the start of the poem, Porphyria has freedom and control but as the piece progresses, it is clear that this freedom and control is curtailed by her lover who contains and incarcerates her through death. As a result it can be argued that Browning’s purpose was to warn women that deviant behaviour would result in their incarceration.
The title “Porphyria’s lover” implies that the female holds a slightly dominant role; the poem is primarily about Porphyria when in fact it is staged from the perspective of the male narrator. This suggests that she is treated as an equal; that she has a freedom which was not permitted by a Victorian society. Also, Browning’s purpose to treat Porphyria as an equal was by naming the male narrator as the “lover.” By doing this, the audience is presented with the idea that the male is secondary in the poem. However, as the piece progresses, it becomes clear that the lover becomes the protagonist character. Therefore, the reader is able to predict Porphyria is treated with power and independence.
Initially, the reader’s hypothesis is correct. There is a sense of freeness as she has the licence to do what she wants; Porphyria “made the cheerless grate blaze up” and “shut the cold out and the storm.” The closing out of the bad weather suggests that the door is closed against a raging society and it also insinuates that they share an intimate relationship. This would have had an effect on a Victorian reader as a relationship between a man and woman was based upon wealth and status. Furthermore, Porphyria then “sat down by [his] side,” which symbolically suggests that she is an equal which contrasts to men’s beliefs in the Victorian era as they believed it was a woman’s role to be lower than the males. Therefore,
It would be easy to assume that women in Victorian England were treated badly. However, “Porphyria’s lover” suggests that his idea springs from society’s control of women. At the start of the poem, Porphyria has freedom and control but as the piece progresses, it is clear that this freedom and control is curtailed by her lover who contains and incarcerates her through death. As a result it can be argued that Browning’s purpose was to warn women that deviant behaviour would result in their incarceration.
The title “Porphyria’s lover” implies that the female holds a slightly dominant role; the poem is primarily about Porphyria when in fact it is staged from the perspective of the male narrator. This suggests that she is treated as an equal; that she has a freedom which was not permitted by a Victorian society. Also, Browning’s purpose to treat Porphyria as an equal was by naming the male narrator as the “lover.” By doing this, the audience is presented with the idea that the male is secondary in the poem. However, as the piece progresses, it becomes clear that the lover becomes the protagonist character. Therefore, the reader is able to predict Porphyria is treated with power and independence.
Initially, the reader’s hypothesis is correct. There is a sense of freeness as she has the licence to do what she wants; Porphyria “made the cheerless grate blaze up” and “shut the cold out and the storm.” The closing out of the bad weather suggests that the door is closed against a raging society and it also insinuates that they share an intimate relationship. This would have had an effect on a Victorian reader as a relationship between a man and woman was based upon wealth and status. Furthermore, Porphyria then “sat down by [his] side,” which symbolically suggests that she is an equal which contrasts to men’s beliefs in the Victorian era as they believed it was a woman’s role to be lower than the males. Therefore,