Gender and Power Relations in Browning’s Porphria’s Lover...

Gender and Power Relations in Browning’s Porphria’s Lover and My Last Duchess Robert Browning provides a critical view of gender and power relations in his dramatic monologues â€Å"Porphyria’s Lover† and â€Å"My Last Duchess.† The dramatic monologue, as S.S. Curry has written, reveals the struggle in the depths of the soul† (11). Browning delves into the minds of characters to show their conceptions of women and ideas of power. He explores the mental processes of the characters, and invites readers to question societal ideas of power and gender. The mental pathologies of the speakers is emphasized, which forces readers to examine the sanity of their own notions of gender dynamics. In the Victorian age, the idea of separate†¦show more content†¦Ã¢â‚¬Å"In men, in general, sexual desire is inherent and spontaneous† whereas â€Å"in the other sex, the desire is dormant, if not non-existent, till excited† (457). Greg’s terminology is extremely power-laden. â€Å"Spontaneous† has the connotation of energy and activity, whereas â€Å"dormant† and â€Å"victim† imply inactivity. An important concept is the assumption that men, the â€Å"coarser sex,† act on women, the â€Å"weaker sex† (457). Like prostitutes, the women in â€Å"Porphyria’s Lover† and â€Å"My Last Duchess† also violate traditional gender roles. For that reason, the men take it upon themselves to bring the power relation back to that of convention, where men are bearers of power and have control in relationships. The means by which this power reversion is accomplished, however, are subject to examination. Foucault’s theories are helpful in understanding â€Å"Porphyria’s Lover.† In the poem, the male character, who is the narrator, perceives himself to elicit a confession from the woman. Inherent in the idea of confession are power dynamics. Confession is â€Å"...a ritual that unfolds within a power relationship, for one does not confess without the presence (or virtual presence) of a partner who is not simply the interlocutor but the authority who requires the confession...† (Foucault 61). Confession is a socially-constructed process in which it is necessary to have a mediator as well as a confessor. In