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Porphyria’s Lover
Setting
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Isolated setting​ that Porphyria must ‘come through wind and rain’ to reach = she clearly
loves him
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Pathetic fallacy of the ’rain’ and ‘sullen wind’ that ‘tore’ down trees and ‘vex[ed] the lake’
sets a foreboding tone reflecting the dark initial mood and inner turmoil of narrator and
suggesting their love was doomed from the start
...
)
conveys an aptly spiteful tone
The cottage, once Porphyria ‘glide[s]’ and makes it ‘warm’ is thus seen as a safe and
welcoming space, which thus contrasts with the cold act of murder
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- Browning portrays a double perspective through the imagery ‘Laugh’d the blue eyes
without a stain’ and ‘Blush’d bright’ which convey a sense of life and happiness on the
narrator’s part, however Browning’s characterisation of the speaker as psychotic
encourages the reader to see his bias and understand these images in the context of a
body after it has been strangled- i
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red
The ​line lengths​ are short which coupled with the one verse structure and enjambment,
creates a breathlessly overwhelming flow of thought, perhaps to reflect the speaker’s
reckless thinking ‘I found/ A thing to do and all her hair/ In one yellow string I wound/ Three
times her little throat around’ ^ immediate action after thought, same line ​∴​ No time to
think through the consequences
Rhyme scheme​ is ABABB- regularity reflective of speaker’s need to control, however since
the enjambment and changing meter disallows for a monotonous or well-balanced rhythm,
his reckless insanity seeps through
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Cyclical structure:
- From ‘made her smooth white shoulder bare […] stooping, made my cheek lie there’
with rep
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- Likewise the reversal of power is shown through the puppetry with ‘She put my arm
around her waist’ contrasted with ‘I propp’d her head up as before’ as now it is the
speaker who arranges her limp body
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The Nature of the Crime(s)
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Sudden and violent -‘And strangled her
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Above jux
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Strangulation is a very intimate and forceful action- the
violence of which is omitted
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Spontaneity of murder suggests crime of passion but the casual tone of ‘I found/A thing to
do’ subverts this idea since he remains calm and unremorseful throughout, disallowing for
any genuine justification
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The transgression from social expectations by having an illicit affair can be seen as social
crime- ‘set its struggling passion free/ From pride, and vainer ties dissever’

The Criminal + Narrative Voice (Inc
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Poss
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His focus on her
throughout as well as the title itself, where he is the ‘lover’ shows his reliance on her
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- However he attempts to show some empathy through his ‘I am quite sure she felt no
pain’, yet Browning emphasises how this is merely for self-assurance through his
repetition of the statement ‘No pain felt she’ and the use of the adverb ‘quite’ to show a
tentative self-assurance which makes this an unconvincing assertion
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His desire for her to be fully in his control is evident from the use of
‘give’ which connotes possessive use, as well as the use of ‘for ever’ which demonstrates

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his obsession with her being exclusively his
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Structurally at this point, since nothing else as strong has
been requested, Browning builds up to the violent murder subtly, since one could at this
point just take this as a very pure and longed for love, reflecting the speaker’s ability in
having hid true nature under his love for Porphyria for so long, perhaps raising ideas
about the psychopaths that live amongst us
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​∴​ his immediate motive is to preserve
that ‘perfectly pure and good’ perception of Porphyria forever
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- The speaker also seems to justify his actions through supposedly fulfilling Porphyria’s
‘darling one wish’ – ‘all it scorn’d at once is fled/And I, its love, am gain’d instead’ as if it
were a consensual act of generous ingenuity

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