to control both. At the same time, it defies both
death and the duke’s power. In jealously reserv-
ing the right to alternately obscure and reveal the
image—”none puts by / The curtain I have drawn
for you, but I” (ll. 9–10)—the duke simultaneously
displays his power and betrays its limitations. As
he seems painfully aware, the demonstration of his
authority and command relies on the exhibition of
the painting, however selective and guarded. And
yet, it is precisely at the moment of its viewing that
the painting strips the duke of this control. He may
open and close the curtain, but he cannot define,
guarantee, or alter the portrait’s visual effects. He
cannot prevent the image from smiling or this smile
from eliciting pleasure in even the lowliest of spec-
tators. Even as he keeps and shows the portrait as
a monument to his own dominion, it defies him in
memorializing the duchess’s unruly affections; her
pleasures, her autonomy, and will; and, most impor-
tant, others’ responses to her, her smiles, and all they
might represent. The portrait commemorates her
death but also conditions the possibility for her to
communicate as though from the grave, to smile
behind the curtain, to defy his will, to subvert rather
than reflecting or contributing to his command. If it
is only in death that the duke manages to turn his
duchess into a “piece” (l. 3), an “object” (l. 3), and a
“wonder” (l. 3), so too is it in death that her power
and will persist.
Hilary Englert
pride in “My Last Duchess”
The duke’s narrative, which features descriptions of
his late wife’s shortcomings and his complicated and
ultimately murderous response to them, reveals—
however obliquely—more about his psychology than
about her character. As he gradually exposes his own
unreliability as a narrator, the duke demonstrates
a coldheartedness, a capacity for cruelty, and an
exceptionally jealous sensibility. These characteris-
tics, however, merely serve the major element of his
psychology: an imperious, authoritarian pride, which
blinds him to the features of his own character that
the reader is invited to find so chillingly compelling.
It is to legitimate his own excessive pride that
the duke shares the story of his former wife’s demise.
Expecting sympathy from his future father-in-law’s
emissary (a silent surrogate for the reader), he elabo-
rates the late duchess’s capital offense: While she was
alive, she neglected to evince more joy and gratitude
at the duke’s “favour” (l. 25) than in the presence of
“The dropping of the daylight in the West” (l. 26)
or in response to a servant’s offering of a “bough of
cherries” (l. 27). He reexperiences the indignity as
he exclaims in disbelief, “Sir, ’twas all one!” (l. 25).
In casting the same “approving” “smile” on all (ll.
30, 43), in equating his “gift of a nine-hundred-
years-old name” with “anybody’s gift” (ll. 33, 34), the
duchess has committed the one transgression that
the duke cannot address without exacerbating the
injury to himself. The duchess’s leveling attentions
embarrassed him and compromised his supremacy.
Yet to have complained would have been whining;
to have exhibited anger—or worse, negotiated for
higher regard—would have been to acknowledge
vulnerability to the smallest of insults. The duke is
painfully conscious of the paradox as he struggles to
articulate the dilemma he faced:Who’d stoop to blame
This sort of trifling? Even had you skill
In speech—(which I have not)—to make
your will
Quite clear to such an one... if she let
Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set
Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made
excuse,
—E’en then would be some stooping, and I
choose
Never to stoop. (ll. 34–43)The halting pauses and awkward, anxious breaks
here dramatize the duke’s struggle to exert his will
within the parameters of a mode of expression and a
code of conduct both severely limited by aristocratic
propriety and exorbitant self-regard.
His parenthetical reminder that he is the only
one authorized to remove the curtain and thereby
reveal the duchess’s image—”(since none puts by /
The curtain I have drawn for you, but I [ll. 9–10])”—
serves as a metaphor for and privileged instance of
this struggle. The duke must work tirelessly to dem-
onstrate and reinforce his power but remain careful
to conceal this labor behind a facade of confident“My Last Duchess” 237