Porphyria's Lover

Porphyria’s Lover - Robert Browning

The poem Porphyria’s Lover was written in the late 1840s and presents one of the most frightening and shocking truths behind mentally ill people – they don’t think that what they’re doing is wrong. When this poem was released it baffled the public and Browning was shunned for his writing although great, it was unaccepted. The main ideas that were explored in the poem that was most recognisable for me was the scandalous love and mental illness. “From pride, and vainer ties dissever, And give herself to me for ever.” This quote from the poem may suggest a scandalous love theme. It seems that her pride would keep her from him most likely because she’s from a higher class than him since it’s set in the Victorian period. “And made her smooth white shoulder bare, And all her yellow hair displaced,” the fact that her hair is yellow and her shoulder is smooth and white shows that she’s clean which would be abnormal or unusual for lower class. “…and all the cottage warm;” the fact that they are meeting in a cottage reinforced the idea of scandalous love because they’re not meeting in public or a more suitable place.

Another idea explored by Robert Browning in Porphyria’s Lover is mental illness. This idea is likely the most prominent idea explored. Although meeting in a cottage may have something to do with social class it could also suggest that there is something wrong with the man; seemingly they can’t meet openly. Then, something else I noticed was that he barely moves and in the start he was just sitting lifeless in the cold dark barn without the fire lit. “A sudden thought of one so pale” her paleness may put forward the thought that she is sick which could justify, him murdering her, a little (also, fun fact, porphyria is a deadly disease). That is until he looks at her after he’s strangled her and still sees her as beautiful as she was before, “ Laughed the blue eyes without a stain. And I untightened next the tress, About...