Robert Browning’s ‘Porphyria’s Lover’ is written in first
person and structure of the poem is in Iambic Tetrameter. It's also been written in past tense. I think that it being written in past tense is vital to
this poem as it feels as if it’s being told like a story and it then doesn't finally catch up into present tense until the end, where he says ‘And thus we
sit together now’ This could be disturbing for the reader as it’s now not only
a story, it’s now become the reality. At the beginning, Browning personifies the
weather such as the ‘wind was soon awake’ purposely as if to sound like
everything is waiting for Porphyria. A line that I think is important to the
story is ‘She shut the cold out and the storm’. The reason for this is because
it’s as if she gives him security and everything is chaotic until she finally
arrives and sets everything calm. He sounds as if he’s insecure about her love
until ‘At last (he) knew Porphyria worshipp’d (him).’ At this point, this is
when the story takes a turn that isn’t expected as it firsts comes across as a
love story until he ‘strangled her.’ This comes just after he realised she
loves him and so gives the impression that because he finally knows this, he
has to keep the moment and by doing that, all he can think of doing is killing
her. He can be seen to be a romantic killer. He also describes her hair as ‘yellow’
and ‘string’ which is used to describe as rope. It’s almost as if he doesn't want to glorify her hair because it’s what killed her. He says that ‘(He is)
quite sure she felt no pain’ which highlights that he did this because he loves
her but it also sounds as if he is trying to assure himself.
The way that he
still describes her as alive after she has been killed suggests that he doesn't really want to believe that he’s killed her but that he’s just put her to sleep
for a while, this is shown in the line ‘The smiling little rosy head.’ She is
given life like features. In the final line, he decides to bring religion into
it by saying ‘And yet God has not said a word!’ As if to say that now he has
sinned, he expected to get his consequences but God has been silent. It sounds
as if he almost wants these consequences for what he has done. It’s not specified who the poem is
written in the point of view of, the only evidence we have is the title, it
could either be written from the point of view of the lover or the husband. The
use of the word ‘Lover’ suggests that this is an affair and the setting is
described as if it’s a small cabin which shows that they’re sneaking around
which adds to the suspicion.
