quote recall

• "too easily impressed"

  • duke sees himself as the be-all and end-all in the her life, with any other avenues of happiness to be insignificant and are quickly stifled by the overbearing duke
  • adverb "too" emphasis his utter disdain for all that makes her happy, ridiculing her even in death, to make himself seem like a victim
  • never made an effort to understand her playful nature, views her joy to be negligible
• "My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name"

  • hubris and arrogance is poignant
  • noun "gift" he believes it is a privilege for his wife to be married to him, sickening the reader
  • portrays himself as helpless: exposing his narcissism since he justifies that he had no choice but to kill her, but she was a victim to his malevolent schemes
  • his life is centred around maintaining a refined representation of himself, pre-occupied with how he comes across and putting a carefully crafted facade of that
• "I choose never to stoop."

  • he thinks she was trying to undermine him thus deserved death
  • narcissistic and patriarchal value system, as he feels arguing with a woman is beneath him since in renaissance period that would be beneath him
  • views himself to be superior to her and believes that she lacks the intellectual facilities to ever understand him
• "That's my last Duchess painted on the wall"

  • he views women as objects that are for display and beauty rather than for love and personality
  • controlled depiction of her
  • he views her as merely surpassing this value than the painting, women are an accessory to him, an object that aids his climbing along the social hierarchy
• " I gave commands."

  • his insecure and paranoid nature culminates him from committing uxoricide
  • euphemistic language demonstrates both his abuse of power and his cowardice
  • despite his dominating and stoic representation, lacks the courage to do the heinous deed himself:
  • doesn't want it to conflict with his pristine status
  • views it as a performance, something to flaunt about
• "Though his fair daughters self, as I avowed At starting, is my object."

  • combination of both caesura and enjambment
  • his abuse of power in the poem serves as a cautionary tale for his next wife, since he placed value upon virginity thus views women as property that only he has the right to use, as though it is a transaction to success
  • entitled and self-centred behaviour
  • attempt to flaunt his barbaric authority as though it is something to be proud of
• "Notice Neptune, though, Taming a sea-horse"

  • metaphor for the Duke taming his wife
  • comparison to neptune, God of Water, demonstrates his arrogance as he views himself to be as might as a God = supercilious
  • he has made himself believe that he is above everyone, omnipotent and omniscient, elevated himself to the most superior status
  • perhaps the need for him to flaunt stems from insecurity, so tries to convince others of what he wishes to achieve
• "The curtain I have drawn for you"

  • subtle symbolism as his wife being only a painting, allowing him control of who does and doesn't see her, and control of when she is significant and insignificant
  • he exercises complete control of her in life and death, has dictated her whole life in tyrannical rule and manipulated her
• "A heart - how shall I say? - too soon made glad"

  • his abusive and devious nature is highlighted through the innocence and misunderstood virtuousness of the Duchess
  • = FOILS
  • even through we see the duchess through the duke's carefully crafted lens that has attempted to illustrate her as a vicious perpetrator , the reader can see the purity shining through the egotistical facade
  • he attempts to make himself seem a victim to her with other men, justifying his uxoricide
  • heightened through the 1st person narrative