Psychology Through Fiction: Analysing Robert Browning’s “Porphyria’s Lover” in Form and Content
Abstract
This paper aims to show the correlation
between the fictitious speaker’s psychological state and some aspects of the
form and content of Robert Browning’s dramatic monologue “Porphyria’s Lover”. By
means of this, it will be argued that Browning is affected by human psychology
in the nineteenth century as can be seen in this poem. In the first paragraph,
this paper gives the definition of the dramatic monologue technique and
exemplifies some of its functions. It debates how this form opens a way for the
psychological view of the poem, and how it reveals the narrator’s mind,
personal interests, and inner temptations. Following this, it deals with the
speaker’s characteristic features that can be identified throughout the poem.
In what ways it can be stated that the narrative voice has an arrogant,
selfish, inconsistent, violent, and misogynistic behavior and point of view is
clarified respectively. Moreover, this paper also focuses on indicating how the
speaker is a narcissistic character who lacks empathy, needs a sense of
entitlement, gives value to only his emotions, and interiorizes the
self-absorbed theme. Then, through the close reading technique, some shreds of
sound evidence are given from the poem in order to assist these claims. Afterward,
this paper examines the description of “gloomy” and “melancholic” weather in
the poem's opening lines. By bringing deeper insight, it specifies how this
kind of weather affects the speaker’s mood and actions in some way. Finally,
this paper is concluded by arguing that the psychological interpretation of
this dramatic monologue is possible as the poem is in the dramatic monologue
form, the speaker’s mental features are revealed by means of his actions including
his thoughts, and the effect of weather on the poetic persona is highlighted.
Furthermore, this paper states that Robert Browning is affected by the works dealing
with psychology, and he uses this in his works as a nineteenth-century poet.
Keywords: dramatic monologue, psychology, Robert
Browning, mood, narcissism, inconsistent, violent, misogynistic
I. Introduction
"And yet God has not said a word!"
(Browning, line 60). The psychological state in which the speaker of Robert
Browning's "Porphyria's Lover" looks down on the lady, commits a
crime while wanting to own her as a possession, and justifies this act by
thinking that God is not against him has been interpreted through the form and
content of this poem. As the poem in question is a dramatic monologue, the
speaker is not supposed to be directly a persona of the poet’s thoughts,
experiences, or inner psychology, on the contrary, the speaker can have a
distinct character of his/her own. Therefore, a poem written in that kind of
form can be viewed as a stage where the speaker’s personality is displayed as
Palmer states that the dramatic monologue is "disclosing the speaker
rather than what is spoken of" (131), the reader should resolve the
literary work in order to have some kind of inferences about the speaker's
psychology. There are some features of the poem that divulge the speaker's
mental state, and they can be listed as follows: the dramatic monologue
technique, the speaker's characteristic features, such as arrogant, selfish, inconsistent,
violent, misogynist, and narcissist, also the effect of such “melancholic” and “gloomy”
weather on the speaker. This paper will focus on each one of these respectively
while analyzing the poem.
II. Dramatic monologue
A. What is a dramatic monologue?
First of all, dramatic monologue is a kind of
genre that reveals the speaker's character, mindset, personal interests, inner
temptations, and so on.
B. What are its functions?
It separates the speaker from the writer, and
according to Howard, in the dramatic monologue, the poet describes his/her
personality in an indirect way (38) as Browning uses it to abstain from showing
himself before his readers and writing about himself explicitly. Accordingly,
the speaker can be viewed as a distinct individual whose characteristic
features and psychology are revealed through this kind of technique in which
the speaker can deliver a speech without any interruptions. Moreover, another
aspect of the dramatic monologue technique is that the speaker’s psychology can
be portrayed in different ways according to the reader’s perspective as Howard
states that the speaker “not only expresses his own
ideas but inevitably permits his thoughts to be colored by the personality of
the hearer” (44). As a consequence, it can be stated that the speaker is centered
on a work that is based on psychological views as the poem is affected by not
only the writer’s but also the reader’s personality and psychology.
III. Analysis of the speaker's characteristic
features
Secondly, there is some kind of characteristic
features that can be identified through the speaker’s sayings, actions, and
thoughts. One of them is that the speaker is an arrogant character, for the
reason that he sees himself as superior to the lady. This can be seen in these
lines of the poem: “Be sure I looked up at her eyes / Happy and proud; at last
I knew / Porphyria worshipped me;” (Browning, lines 31-33). He states that the
lady “worships” him, and he sees her as an object. As a result, it can be seen
that arrogance is one of the traits of his personality. Another characteristic feature
of his is selfishness, and it can be found in his character since he, after
strangling the lady, says these: "No pain felt she; / I am quite sure she
felt no pain." (Browning, lines 41-42). It can be stated that he does not
give value to the lady's emotions, and he makes a decision on behalf of the
lady. Besides, he thinks that the lady's greatest wish is fulfilled because he
believes that the lady wants to stay with him forever, and this can be seen in
these lines: "Porphyria's love: she guessed not how / Her darling one wish
would be heard." (Browning, lines 56-57). Therefore, it can be interpreted
as his selfish act to come to such an assumption. The speaker acts in an
inconsistent way as well, and this can be seen in that even though he has some
kind of emotional attraction towards the lady, he decides to strangle her,
which can be interpreted that there is a conflict between his emotions and his
actions. Furthermore, the speaker can be viewed as a violent person as he uses
violence in order to be the dominant character in his relationship with the
lady, and this violent act is displayed in these lines:
That moment she was
mine, mine, fair,
Perfectly pure and
good: I found
A thing to do, and all
her hair
In one long yellow
string I wound
Three times her little
throat around,
And strangled her. (Browning, lines 36-41)
As can be seen, the speaker decides to resort
to violence all of a sudden. Additionally, the speaker has a kind of
misogynistic behavior towards the lady as he is depicted as a powerful, prevailing,
disdainful, and active figure throughout the poem; nevertheless, The lady is
depicted as a passive, silent, despised, and humiliated one. The lady does not
take a role in the action, and she does not go against the speaker when the
murder takes place. Hence, her emotions, desires, and thoughts are ambiguous to
be revealed, on the other hand, the speaker does not see her as an individual
as Uruk points out that “Porphyria, while she has an autonomous identity at
first, loses, gradually, her subjectivity to the dominance and violence of her
lover” (217). In consequence, the study argues that the lady is portrayed as a
weak, vulnerable, and submissive person, and she loses her “identity” through
her relationship with the speaker.
A. Narcissistic traits of the speaker’s character
Another trait of the speaker’s character is
that the speaker has a narcissistic attitude as he, in a way, takes advantage
of the lady’s feelings in order to satisfy his sexual needs, and he
accomplishes this by considering himself to be rightful to behave as if the
lady’s approval does not matter at all. Russell, in his study, quotes that
“Kernberg describes the relationships of narcissistic personalities as
exploitative and parasitic: it is as if they feel they have the right to
control others and to exploit them without guilt” (139). The speaker
"exploits" the lady to show his authority over the relationship, and
he seems to be far from feeling remorse after committing the crime as can be
seen in these lines: "And thus we sit together now, / And all night long
we have not stirred," (Browning, lines 58-59). In addition, the speaker
does not put himself on the lady's side, instead, he argues that he is right
while he takes no notice of the lady’s point of view, and this can be depicted
as a narcissistic behavior of his as the work of Erdoğan et al. shows that narcissistic
people are “unable to empathize, they do not want to understand the feelings
and needs of others.”[i]
(13), the speaker only cares for himself, and he wants the lady—her beauty as
well—to be by his side forever because he desires to please his ego, and he is
in need of a kind of special treatment or privilege by the lady. Thus, he
decides to deprive the lady of continuing her life, without thinking about the
consequences that might affect not only the lady but also himself.
IV. The weather description in the poem and
its effect on the speaker's mood
Thirdly, the weather is also associated with
the speaker’s psychological state. As the poem starts with a cheerless
description that can be seen in these lines:
The rain set early in
to-night,
The sullen wind was
soon awake,
It tore the elm-tops
down for spite,
And did its worst to
vex the lake:
(Browning, lines 1-4)
It can be seen that the speaker is affected by
this depressing kind of weather. Moreover, the effect of weather not only has
something to do with the speaker’s mentality but also with his actions as it is
stated that “weather continues to be an important determinant of everyday mood
and behavior in modern life” (Keller et al. 724). Consequently, it can be
argued that there is a connection between the bad weather and the speaker’s
spleenful state of mind as he waits for the lady’s arrival at the cottage with
a “sullen” face.
V. Conclusion
To sum up, the dramatic monologue technique,
the speaker's characteristic features that are analyzed above, and the effect
of weather on the speaker's mood and actions enable us to look through the poem
in a psychological way, and this can be achieved through the form and content
of the poem. Additionally, some of the speaker’s psychological features are
revealed through the close reading technique to have a broader perspective of the
speaker, and the connection between the poem and psychology is stated.
Consequently, it can be said that as a nineteenth-century poet, Browning is
affected by the works that are based on psychology, and he deals with it in his
works, especially in "Porphyria's Lover". Furthermore, the influence
of human psychology on nineteenth-century literature can be seen, and this poem
is one of the works that reveal the complexity of human psychology.
References
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