That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall,

● ‘My’ - narcissistic possession

Looking as if she were alive. I call

● ‘That’s my last duchess’ - objectifies her, takes control of her

That piece a wonder, now; Fra Pandolf’s hands

● ‘A wonder’ - is she the wonder or is the painting a wonder?

● ‘I call’ - it is his opinion that brings any value to the piece, as a representation or as an
individual, who they were
● Her eyes wandered, her mind wandered, she wandered when she was not supposed to
wander - ‘that piece a wonder’, she reduces her to an action
● ‘Wonder’ is a verb, it is transitory, to him, these wives come and they go

Worked busily a day, and there she stands.

● Fra Pandolf has a name but the duchess does not

● This man controls who gets to look at her and who does not - she loses her autonomy
● She is reduced to a day’s work
● He adornes her i death and gloriies her beauty asit has been exclusively his, he has
immortalised it for his pleasure
○ Mentally unstable and obsessive
○ PSYCHOANALYTIC CRITISIM
■ The duke is a sadist and is a voyeur - it talks about the freudian steps
towards sadsm and how sadists operate and has voyerusitic tendencies
● Impulse to master or control
● Giving up the object
● Seeking another object so that the first object becomes passive
○ This is what we see with the duke and the duchess
■ ‘Fetishistic totem’
■ Rather than insecurity, he is obsessive and a voyeur
● Rather than just losing this woman whom he
cant control, he turns her into this thing that
she can control
● The relationship between the duke and the
duchess is like that between the coloniser
and the colonised: when the duke encounters
 her, he mistreats her, but once she is within
the painting, that is when he glorifies her -
postcolonial criticism
○ Once the duke can control the
woman, he exoticises her, turning her
into a presentation
● The imagery is not sexual, if he ahd more of a perverse nature towards her, he would
express that more through freudian slips, but he is just glorifying her beauty as though
she was an ornament

Will’t please you sit and look at her? I said

● He has also positioned a chair and seat in front of it

● There is a juxtaposition within this question - ‘will’t please’ is asking, but then ‘sit and
look at her’ is demanding, monosyllabic, caveman-like
○ Plus the fact that this is a servant who he is speaking to furthers this power
dynamic
○ Control created by rhyming couplets and iambic pentameter, juxtaposed with
erratic enjambment and caesura and shape of the poem
○ Tries to bring her alive through his glance, but if there were no guests there,
would he sit in front of the painting for hours
○ Tries to impose his own view of the painting onto the servant

“Fra Pandolf” by design, for never read

Strangers like you that pictured countenance,
The depth and passion of its earnest glance,

● ‘Its’ - she is no longer human

● Fra pandolf was able to capture the depth and the passion and the earnestness
● Pandolf could see her the way the duke never could

But to myself they turned (since none puts by

The curtain I have drawn for you, but I)

● Emphasis on the power he has at the time as well as in her death

And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst,

How such a glance came there; so, not the first
Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, ’twas not
Her husband’s presence only, called that spot
 ● Hypophora - he asks the question and then answers it
● Only describes her relative to other people in an expressive human manner - maybe
showing his perception of how she was only human to other people
● There are layers of control:
○ Linguistic control
○ Imaginative control?
○ Visual control
■ The content juxtaposes the structure

Of joy into the Duchess’ cheek; perhaps

● Humanizes the blush in her cheek, but does not humanize her as a person - shows the
importance of her as a commodity resting on his arm?
● Because he is so obsessed with her glance, he thinks everyone else is
● It was not just her husband’s presence that brought about her expression, but also fra
pandolf’s
● He imagines fra pandolf just being courteous to her, and her taking it out of context? It
could be here that pandolf is talking to her to get her completely relaxed so he can paint
the full image of her, but she is reading into his words wrong and she is responding in a
sexual way to what could have just been innocent conversation between fra pandolf and
herself
● She could have just had a fever
● The dramatic monologue means we only get to see the duchess through his eyes and so
we only focus on what he wants us to focus on
● ‘Fra’ = brother, juxtaposes his nobleness

Fra Pandolf chanced to say, “Her mantle laps

Over my lady’s wrist too much,” or “Paint
Must never hope to reproduce the faint
Half-flush that dies along her throat.” Such stuff
Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough
For calling up that spot of joy. She had
A heart—how shall I say?— too soon made glad,

● It sounds conversational, he is accusing her of being unfaithful, but it does not sound very
serious
● She was a kind person, but she was too kind for his liking - it also gives her a sense of
innocence
Too easily impressed; she liked whate’er
She looked on, and her looks went everywhere.

● Because of the family she was born into, she was isolated from society even in her
father’s home and the only men allowed to come into her living space were her father,
brothers, and a priest if she wanted to confess - her mother was very religiously strict, she
was isolated and constricted young and then she gets married at 13 and she is allowed a
sense of freedom in her husband’s house and now this just seems like a kid impressed
with everything - naive, childish innocence
● The duke was only 24 - he is ignorant or misunderstanding? Arrogance about him that
comes from a certain experience, he has the experience of being affluent in his circle and
so he is more experienced in terms of social interactions than his wife and he just expects
her to have that and does not like it when she does not have that
● She is eyeing people up, looking at them in a sexual way
● She is promiscuous in the things that she looks at - he felt that he was being cheated on,
not with her body but with her eyes and her countenance and the way in which she
received people
● He needs to be faithful to him in every aspect of her being
● After marriage shhe was confined to her room, sometimes because she was ill, although
she had more freedom than at her own house, she still did not have much freedom

Sir, ’twas all one! My favour at her breast,

The dropping of the daylight in the West,
The bough of cherries some officious fool
Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule
She rode with round the terrace—all and each
Would draw from her alike the approving speech,
Or blush, at least. She thanked men—good! but thanked

● She is in touch with nature, she is a Romantic?

● Entire argument is illogical? He does not know what he is on about - because this is a
dramatic monologue, it is interesting that there are so many random interjections ‘I know
not how’
● You have some sense of worth because of the name I have given you - ‘my gift of a
nine-hundred-years-old name’
● Parallel to Eve? If all sin stems from Eve, then she is inherently in the wrong -
● Free will vs determinism - resolves to determinism

Somehow—I know not how—as if she ranked

My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name
With anybody’s gift. Who’d stoop to blame
This sort of trifling? Even had you skill
In speech—which I have not—to make your will

● Very othello-like → ‘even had you skill In speech’

Quite clear to such an one, and say, “Just this

Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss,
Or there exceed the mark”—and if she let
Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set

● Not only did she refuse to change but she challenged his wit, his authority
○ Or you could say that he is not going to lower himself to teach his wife how to
behave
○ It is above him to even point out her errors - pointing out another person’s errors
is above him
○ He does not have the skill in speech to make his will quie clear - this is
hypothetical here and he is imagining her letting herself be lessoned
● ‘Lessoned’ = ‘lessened’ →
● Lillith is theorized to be the first wife of adam, she was created from the same clay as
adam, but she refused to listen to adam and she was banished from society - the
premidorial she-demon, she is satanic - Lilith never returned to the garden of eden

Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse—

E’en then would be some stooping; and I choose
Never to stoop. Oh, sir, she smiled, no doubt,

● He sees himself as the centre of her world in his head

● He has been merciful, he has been patient, he allows it to grow - that is how he presents
himself, its not like he gave commands immediately
● The way he says ‘I gave commands’ - god-like

Whene’er I passed her; but who passed without

Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands;
Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands
As if alive. Will’t please you rise? We’ll meet

● ‘Will’t please you rise’ - its a euphemistic command, but what he means his stand up

The company below, then. I repeat,

The Count your master’s known munificence
Is ample warrant that no just pretense
Of mine for dowry will be disallowed;
Though his fair daughter’s self, as I avowed
At starting, is my object. Nay, we’ll go
Together down, sir. Notice Neptune, though,
Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity,
Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me!

● Freud talks about the sadist having an object to focus on - what he is saying here
outwardly is what I am pursuing here is the mariage to the woman, but what heis saying
is that she ishis object - you get the horrible feeling that this new wife will suffer the
same fate as lucretzia - even before getting married to her, he has objectified her
● The duek is manipulating his guest, his manner is reflective of his view on the world -
just as the monologue is cramped, so are others within his world
● There is a power dynamic even in the way that the servant is sat and he is standing, and
when he finishes, that is when he says rise
● He attempts to control what the guest thinks, attempts to physically control the guest,
what the guest is allowed to look at is controlled, the guest is silenced and the duke puts
questions inthe guests’ mouth
● Controlling even where the guest looks, where his eyes go - ‘Notice neptune’
○ Seahorse is again another symbol - seahorses are imagined to be untameable
creatures,
○ It idealizes him, what was imagined a rarity, claus of innsbruck cast in bronze for
me, this idea that this eashorse being tamed by neptune was cast in bronze for the
duke, gives him power over the actions of the duke - and we know what art means
for the duke after the painting of his last duchess
○ The art in his house becomes an extension of himself and his god complex
○ Neptune taming the seahorse can be paralleled to his taming of his wife
○ Abraham ‘my god can give and take life’ → nimrod says that he can give and take
life too
■ Abraham meant that god can create life, he is creating life through his art,
he is attempting to
● ‘Looking as if she were alive’ → adds to his god complex
● The duchess is painted in his image; man was created in god’s
image - she is the perfect wife, and he has given her her life
● He chooses to challenge the wife instead of the men - he is not an intimidating men, he
sees himself as being under them, and so he overcompensates by exerting control