Porphyria's Lover
Porphyria’s Lover
Speaker Point of View
Who is the speaker, can she or he read minds, and, more importantly, can we trust her or him?
The speaker of "Porphyria's Lover" sounds awfully straightforward. His tone is incredibly reasonable, which makes it even creepier considering he's describing horrific things (such as strangling his girlfriend and cuddling with the corpse). He even makes it sound as though he was doing her a favour – he calls it "her darling one wish" (line 57). It's hard to tell from the speaker's language that he's off his rocker, since he speaks very smoothly and matter-of-factly. The rhyme scheme remains steady, and the meter is pretty regular (except for a few places – check out "Form and Meter" for some telling exceptions). What kind of psychopathic murderer would be able to describe his crimes so calmly? Thus, the calm, smooth tone of the speaker adds to the effect of the poem. The speaker is kind of like the killer in the movie Seven: he doesn't think he's done anything wrong, and that's part of what makes him so terrifying.
Porphyria's Lover Setting
The poem takes place in a house near a lake, probably out in the country somewhere. There are trees around, and it's probably a pretty nice place to visit when the weather's good. Too bad the weather's so crummy on the night the poem takes place. It's raining and so windy that the speaker imagines that the wind is consciously trying to break down trees out of "spite" (line 3).
The speaker doesn't tell us much about what the inside of the house looks like. There's no fire in the "grate" until Porphyria arrives, so the house is probably pretty cold. If there's no fire, there must not be any servants (most middle class Victorians kept at least one servant), so the speaker might be relatively poor. After all, the house is described as a "cottage" (line 9). Porphyria sure does a lot to cheer up the inside of the house, though! The fire makes everything all cosy. It doesn't seem all that bad – a
Speaker Point of View
Who is the speaker, can she or he read minds, and, more importantly, can we trust her or him?
The speaker of "Porphyria's Lover" sounds awfully straightforward. His tone is incredibly reasonable, which makes it even creepier considering he's describing horrific things (such as strangling his girlfriend and cuddling with the corpse). He even makes it sound as though he was doing her a favour – he calls it "her darling one wish" (line 57). It's hard to tell from the speaker's language that he's off his rocker, since he speaks very smoothly and matter-of-factly. The rhyme scheme remains steady, and the meter is pretty regular (except for a few places – check out "Form and Meter" for some telling exceptions). What kind of psychopathic murderer would be able to describe his crimes so calmly? Thus, the calm, smooth tone of the speaker adds to the effect of the poem. The speaker is kind of like the killer in the movie Seven: he doesn't think he's done anything wrong, and that's part of what makes him so terrifying.
Porphyria's Lover Setting
The poem takes place in a house near a lake, probably out in the country somewhere. There are trees around, and it's probably a pretty nice place to visit when the weather's good. Too bad the weather's so crummy on the night the poem takes place. It's raining and so windy that the speaker imagines that the wind is consciously trying to break down trees out of "spite" (line 3).
The speaker doesn't tell us much about what the inside of the house looks like. There's no fire in the "grate" until Porphyria arrives, so the house is probably pretty cold. If there's no fire, there must not be any servants (most middle class Victorians kept at least one servant), so the speaker might be relatively poor. After all, the house is described as a "cottage" (line 9). Porphyria sure does a lot to cheer up the inside of the house, though! The fire makes everything all cosy. It doesn't seem all that bad – a