My last duchess

• “I gave commands then all smiles stopped together”


  Doesn’t explicitly say he killed her

  Colloquial tone in comparison to severity in the action of taking a human life
• “None puts by the curtain I have drawn for you, but I”


  He controls who gets to see her she is his to control
• “Her looks went everywhere“


  Suggests the duchess had an affair with someone
• “She ranked my gift of a 900 years old name with anybody’s gift.”


  She didn’t value his power over other people
• “My last duches”


  My- posessive pronoun, the Duke owns her
• “As if she were alive”

  Sets a sinister and suspenseful tone
• “That spot of joy” “Flush that dies along her throat”


  Repeatedly brings up the ‘flush’ that the painter added ( accusatory tone)

  Dies- Foreshadows death