Porphyria’s Lover and The Laboratory
“Porphyria’s Lover” and “The Laboratory” both deal with crimes of
passion. Explore ways Browning explains ways of obsessive nature of
his character and analysis the effects of literary techniques.
“Porphyria’s Lover” is a poem about a crime and passion. Porphyria is
a young, wealthy girl who seems to have abandoned her family’s
tradition of choosing wealthy men as lovers. Her lover remains
anonymous, this could be because he has murdered her and does not want
his name releasing. There is no actual reference as to why he
committed this crime we can only make suggestions. Perhaps it was
because she would not forsake her affluent companions for him, or
because he felt she did not share his love for her. This poem is in
the lover’s point of view only, so we can not really know how
Porphyria is feeling, we can only guess from her body language and her
actions mentioned and her actions. It is a Victorian poem and Browning
uses sexual references, which is very unusual because sex was a taboo
and was not discussed openly in Victorian times.
At the beginning of the poem, there is a storm brewing which is
mirroring the lover’s feelings. He is angry at Porphyria and
desperately wants her love
“The sullen wind was soon awake,
It tore the elm tops down for spite,”
The wind has been personified which is particularly effective because
it heightens the anger the lover is feeling and soon realises this.
Browning cleverly set's the scene by using strong word such as
"sullen", "tore" and "vex". Already we can see that this man, the
lover, desperately craves the love of Porphyria, and leads us to
question why he is so angry and what happened previous to this as to
make him ...
... middle of paper ...
...eless of body,
and he wants her, he possesses her. This time it is she that needs
him, she was not strong enough before but now it is she that needs him.
He is trying to make comparisons from before and now, he wants to go
back to that moment and hold it.
“I propped her head up as before,”
We see that, in death, the head is extremely heavy now because he now
has to hold it in place; she has now been reduced to a limp corpse.
The lover depersonalises her by thinking for her, and now she truly
is, his possession. He feels he has won the battle with her wealth
family and friends
“And I, its love, am gained instead!”
He now believes that he has evaded the law and has her forever now,
unwilling to share her with anyone else. He feels God is condoning his
actions, and will not be punished, he is arrogantly believing he has
escaped charges of murder.
because it would anger her husband. She was afraid to go back to school and
broken. She has enough strength to say "No" and to leave him by running away
same time imposes his will on her. He hinders her from having her own thoughts.
write that the woman in the poem is talking about the man not to him.
was written in order to show what a family was going through, at this time
her and he wanted to marry her. But he couldn’t because he was poor. Daisy was rich,
“Fierce pain, paralysis and sickness took over my body, for week’s doctors seemed to think I was either making it up, mad or anorexic. Eventually they discovered it was porphyria, and it was inherited from my father… We learned that antibiotics prescribed for a minor infection, had probably triggered it in my case, but after that, I generally suffered attacks in my pre-menstrual period. These attacks varied in severity, but the pain and vomiting were omnipresent… My weight gradually dropped, as I was unable to regain it in the short periods of time between attacks, which led me to an attack which left me almost completely paralyzed.” (Elizabeth, 2011)
knew that she didn't love him, but still proceeded to commit the rest of his life to her. Consequently, a story of forbidden passion, hatred, and jealousy unfolds.
his situation. His reaction to her marriage in the first place sent him into deep depression,
...rson and he knows that she will take care of the little guy even if the Guy is not around. A distort desire to be free of the situation drive the whole family into tragedy and leave them grieves
Some say they've seen vampires before, others say they're crazy but it just could possibly be the truth. Porphyria is the deficiency or inactivity of a specific enzyme in the heme production process. Porphyria effects different people in different ways. It is also the origin of the myth of vampires. Since there is no actual recording of vampires, this disease is the only thing that could make a person vampire-like. There are two main types of Porphyria; Acute Intermittent Porphyria and Cutaneous Porphyria. Both of which have negative effects that will affect a person badly. Porphyria effects the the body externally, internally, and family.
life makes it hard for him to give her up to Charles Darnay. After the wedding
In her poem, “Why Do I Love” You, Sir? The theme is love. She is deeply with someone, but they could not be together because of religious reasons and she was scared of what others would say about them. Dickinson randomly capitalized some of the letters in this poem, she also used dashes instead of periods. This showed that she was not scared to brake rules and was not afraid to be different from the other poets. In the first stanza, she kept asking why did she love. In the next line she replies with because and leaves it at that. The next few lines Dickinson brouded her response, “The Wind dos not require the Grass / To answer-Wherefore when He pass / She cannot keep Her place.” (3-5) here, she is explaining that her and her lover are so tightly bonded together that they do not even have to talk to each other, they just know. She uses a metaphor to compare their tight bond to the wind and the grass, how they do not have to answer to one another. She also said that she could not control her emotions when she was around this person because she is utterly in love.