My Last Duchess and Othello, IV, iii

In the dramatic form, be it soliloquy, dialogue or in full theatrical scene, the author nonify non step into the action to comment or envision for us, as he can in a novel. We must delimitate our own conclusions from what we see and hear, and this makes for powerful effects, as a character reveals him- or herself to us by what he or she says or does. In the monologue My Last Duchess Browning misleads us with wide skill before we fix that we are listening to a criminal lunatic.The dramatic force lies in the surprise we feel as the truth fin exclusivelyy emerges. In knead IV, scene iii of Othello there is again an agonizing irony for the viewer, who knows more(prenominal) than Desdemona and is of course impotent to help her. Shakespeare works equal a dental practitioner without an anaesthetic, and the pain for the audience derives from the unbearable innocence of the doomed Desdemona, who is surely something like the Duchess in Brownings poem, helpless and bewildered in the view of a murderous insanity in her husband.Brownings Duke sounds so sane He is wonderfully gracious and articulate Willt please you sit and look at her? (5). As he tells his account he seems to weigh his words with great caution, as if he is sort of free of the distorting power of anger or any other passion, and is cunning to avoid any unfairness in his judgment She had / A sprightliness how sh all I say? too soon made glad (21-2), further thanked / Somehow I know not how as if she ranked (31-2). He never raises his voice, and speaks with a measured confidence that quite takes us in.At first we might be tempted to believe that his attitudes are reasonable Sir, twas not / her husbands presence only, called that spot / Of joy into the Duchess cheek (13-15). His behavior is restrained even as he hints at her infidelity. The painter flattered her rough her appearance, as of course he would, being a Renaissance creative person totally dependent on patronage, yet she was c harmed by it foolishly, the Duke suggests.She wish whateer / She looked on (23-24). She was delighted by the beauty of the sunset, and the little tri unlesse from the man who gave her the cherries, just as much as My favour at her breast (25). What he seems to be objecting to is her failure to be properly discriminating and aristocratic in her tastes. This is a rather extreme sort of snobbery, but perhaps not unprecedented we may not find it attractive, but we may accept it as a feature of a sublime man with a nine-hundred-years-old name (33).All the time, Browning is luring us up the garden path. We convey to detect the problem. The Duke is immensely proud, a man of great heritage, while she is free of snobbery, charmed by the delights of the world and human kindness, and in truth aboveboard. (Infidelity does not now seem to be the Dukes concern.) Then we begin to see how his pride is really pathological arrogance.Even had you skill / In speech (which I have not) (35-36), ( he lies, of course) to explain your objection to her behavior which is understandably quite normal it would involve give ining, and I choose / Never to stoop (42-3). So, rather than speak to her about his dissatisfaction, which would involve impossible condescension by him, he chose to solve the problem rather more radically This grew I gave commands / Then all smiles stopped together (45-6).It takes a moment for us to register what he did, so unbelievable is it and so evasively phrased. Then, having confessed to murder, or, rather, boasted of it, he continues his negotiations for his next Duchess, celebrating, incidentally, one of his favorite art works, Neptune Taming a sea-horse (54-5), the very bod of the brutal control that he has himself exerted over his innocent last Duchess.The willow tree scene from Othello works differently, of course, because it is a dialogue, though it is the inner workings of Desdemonas mind that the dramatic form reveals here, just as much as is t he case in Brownings poem There is an some intolerable pathos about this scene because Desdemona is so helpless. She has a just idea of what is going to happen If I do die before thee, prithee shroud me / In one of those same sheets (24-5) and is impotent in the depend of her fate.There seems to be no defence against the ruthless execution of Othellos enraged will. She is in a sort of trance, a hypnosis of shock. All she can do is wait for the end, and the pathetic simplicity of her reflections here is the sign of a wounded spirit in retreat from reality. The tragic atmosphere is precondition additional poignancy by the occasional interruption of the everyday elaborate of undressing for bed, the habitual continuing because there is nothing else to do in the typesetters case of the worst Prithee unpin me (21).She continues at moments to pretend that this is just an usual night This Lodovico is a proper man (35), not a equality of Othello with her country forms, but a pathet ic attempt at gossip. nevertheless her real thoughts emerge in the obsession with the willow song, which she cannot resist. It is the perfect reverberate of her own fortune And she died singing it that song tonight / Will not go from my mind (30-1). Like a detail from a psychoanalysts casebook comes the unprompted line in the song that gives outside(a) the deepest thoughts of the willing victim.Let nobody blame him, his scorn I approve, Nay, thats not next. Hark Whos that knocks?It is the wind. (51-3)She corrects herself, but the absolute terror of actualisation goes through her.The heroic innocence of Desdemona is highlighted by her conversation with genus genus Emilia. While Desdemona very believes that no woman could in fact commit adultery for all the world (63), and swears that she herself would not do it by this heavenly light (64), Emilia responds, Nor I neither, by this heavenly light, / I might do it as well in the dark (65-6), and goes on to consider just what all th e world might mean as a reward for the sin.Emilia is not immoral. It is just that Desdemona is on a superhuman and heroic train of behavior, and Emilia is on the normal level. Compared with Desdemonas helplessness in the face of the corruption of Othello, Emilias jokes have an immensely remedial health. It is not a criticism of Desdemona, but it is a firm placing of trust in the human by Shakespeare.We can imagine that what Desdemona feels and says is very close to the receipt of Brownings Duchess. Both of them are innocent and benevolent women go about by deranged men. The creation of character and the realization of human dilemma in the dramatic form are forceful and, in these deuce cases, immensely painful for the audience or reader. The form makes the reader peculiarly impotent in the face of disaster. We would like to stand up in the theatre and shout at the stage, like the lady in the renowned story, You great black fool, cant you see shes innocent?