As
prominent examples of the Victorian silent female, the women of Dante Gabriel
Rosetti's "The Blessed Damozel" and Robert Browning's
"Porphyria's Lover" hold a deeper meaning than a simple woman who
desires her lover. Due to the fact that
these women are silent throughout these works, their thoughts and feelings are
channeled through the poems' speakers.
By showing the feelings of the women through their male lovers, the
poets create a slanted point of view that only represents the thoughts and
desires of the speaker. The point of
view of the women becomes made up or even nonexistent. These unreliable narrators may accurately
relay the actions of the poem, but in speaking for the women's feelings they
distort the truth. By utilizing these
male narrators, the poets establish a paradigm where silence or death becomes a
state where the woman yearns for the man.
It is a position of control that is sought by the narrators. This control becomes evident in the ways that
the narrators worry about the feelings of the poems' women. This need for control ultimately contributes
to the ways in which the speakers make assumptions about their lovers'
feelings, relaying what they believe to be the truth.
Dante
Rosetti's "The Blessed Damozel" is the story of a woman who has
passed away and now yearns for her lover who is still on Earth. While the woman's dialogue comprises most of
the poem, the story is told through the male lover who is still alive. Her dialogue is quoted, while the narrator's
thoughts and feelings are included within parenthesis. By quoting her dialogue, the poem shows that
her words are channeled through the speaker.
The speaker sees her state of death as something that has intensified
her passion for him: "'I wish that he were come to me, / For he will
come,' she said. / 'Have I not prayed in Heaven?'" (67-68). His words show that he believes her desire
for him has either grown or not diminished.
He claims that she is taken over by a deep melancholy: "Her eyes
were deeper than the depth / Of waters stilled at even" (3-4). The speaker intensifies her melancholy by
claiming that something as great as heaven is an impediment to their love:
"The blessed damozel leaned
out / From the gold bar of Heaven" (1-2).
Not only is heaven an impediment, but being there adds insult to injury
as she sees others enjoying what she cannot have: "Around her, lovers,
newly met / 'Mid deathless love's acclaims, / Spoke evermore among
themselves" (37-40).
Browning's
"Porphyria's Lover" shows death as a similar condition. Although the narrator of "The Blessed
Damozel" is a harmless lover telling his wishes, Browning's narrator is
more sinister. He desires Porphyria, but
she is tied down by other obligations. He
begins with a sort of cat and mouse game: "When no voice replied, / She
put my arm about her waist, / And made her smooth white shoulder bare, / And
all her yellow hair displaced" (15-18). He is unresponsive and silent,
seeking a response as she almost offers herself to him. Inaction is a
subversive way to exercise control over her, as he claims, "And, stooping,
made my cheek lie there, / And spread, e'er all, her yellow hair, / Murmuring
how she loved me—" (19-21). He gets
what he wants as she lays his head on her breast—she is initiating all of the
action. This is the way he wants it to be.
By strangling her with her own hair, he creates a situation where he
believes she is able to make the choice she really wants. The speaker believes that being dead allows
Porphyria to unchain her desires as well as give him complete possession over
her: "That moment she was mine, mine, fair" (36). The speaker's
repetitive use of the word "mine" suggests his possessive nature. As he claims "I untightened next the
tress / About her neck; her cheek once more / Blushed bright beneath my burning
kiss:" (46-48), he shows that he is willing to take action once she has
completely given herself to him. Their
roles reverse: "Only, this time my shoulder bore / Her head, which droops
upon it still" (50-51).
These
men who see complete devotion and overwhelming passion from their lovers in
death seem to do so out of worry and stress about how their respective women
actually feel about them. The speaker of
"The Blessed Damozel" interrupts his narration to ask "Strove
not her steps to reach my side / Down all the echoing stair?" (65-66). He questions whether she desires to descend
from Heaven down to where he is. He
alludes to the cycle of day and night that the Damozel observes, down "as
low as where this earth / Spins like a fretful midge" (35-36). As he is down on Earth, he also alludes to
himself as fretful. The speaker is
stressing over the Damozel and he is the one feeling that heaven is the
"golden bar."
The
speaker of "Porphyria's Lover" begins by describing the weather in
line with his feelings: "The rain set early in to-night, / The sullen wind
was soon awake, / It tore the elm-tops down for spite, / And did its worst to
vex the lake" (1-4). He establishes the cold harsh outside that
mirrors his feelings as he worries about where Porphyria may be. By claiming "I listened with heart fit
to break" (5), the speaker is clearly stressing over Porphyria. Her presence seems to ease his mind as she
walks in: "When glided in Porphyria; straight / She shut the cold out and
the storm, / And kneeled and made the cheerless grate / Blaze up, and all the
cottage warm" (6-9). She brings
warmth and good feelings, and he now knows she's no longer somewhere else. He is separated from her and worrying about
where she is, how she feels about him or how far she is willing to go in their
relationship. His worry comes primarily
from her indecision: "Too weak, for all her heart's endeavour, / To set
its struggling passion free / From pride, and vainer ties dissever" (22-24).
Pride and vainer ties suggest that she
is of a higher class and cannot succumb to her feelings because of societal
constraints. As he claims "passion
sometimes would prevail, / Nor could to-night's gay feast restrain"
(26-27), he shows that at other times she has given in, while the feast also
suggests her upper class status. This
status and indecision is something he frets about and makes his worry more troublesome
because she is not willing to fully commit to him in the way that he would like.
These
worried speakers act out their concerns through their assumptions of the way
their lovers feel about them. They
portray their women's feelings as more hyperbolic than actually truthful. The speaker of "The Blessed
Damozel" insists that "Surely she leaned o'er me—her hair / Fell all
about my face . . . / Nothing: the autumn-fall of leaves. / The whole year sets
apace" (20-23). He thinks she must be
doing these things that he imagines. He
envisions her beseeching God to allow her to go back to the way it was on
Earth:
"There will I ask of Christ the Lord
Thus much for him and me:—
Only to live as once on earth
With Love,—only to be,
As then awhile, for ever now
Together, I and he." (127-132)
The narrator's assumption that she
cannot be happy without him regardless of where she is holds extra weight by
depicting her in Heaven. Even though
heaven is a great, magical place, he wishes and believes that she feels so
strongly for him that Heaven is simply an obstacle between them.
Part
of his assumption of the Damozel is that he is going to heaven. The speaker intertwines her desire for him
and his assurance he will go to Heaven as a way for him to be with her. His desires become apparent through the lines
given to the Damozel: "When round his head the aureole clings, / And he is
clothed in white, / I'll take his hand and go with him / To the deep wells of
light;" (73-76). She claims
assuredly that "All this is when he comes" (135). As she says
"Then will I lay my cheek / To his, and tell about our love, / Not once
abashed or weak: / And the dear Mother will approve" (116-119), she seems
to reassure him that they will be together.
Much
in the way that the speaker of "The Blessed Damozel" assumes that she
prefers her lover's company to the bliss of Heaven, so too does the speaker of
"Porphyria's Lover" assume that Porphyria "worships"
him. This realization seems completely
legitimate to the speaker, and affects him emotionally: "Porphyria
worshipped me; surprise / Made my heart swell, and still it grew / While I
debated what to do" (33-35). He
imposes his feelings and hopes upon Porphyria in a similar way, with the poem
reading as if it were his own sort of fantasy world. He insists that "again / Laughed the
blue eyes without a strain" (44-45), reasoning that she is no longer
entangled in her constraints. He
believes her eyes are laughing because she is now free to love him unrepressed. Although he acknowledges that he has murdered
Porphyria, he continues to say that this has helped her make a decision she
already wanted to make: "The smiling rosy little head, / So glad it has
its utmost will, / That all it scorned at once is fled, / And I, its love, am
gained instead!" (52-55). He
declares the fruition of their unrestrained love as "Her darling one wish"
(57). Not unlike the way the Blessed
Damozel prefers her lover to Heaven, the
speaker confirms his belief that she loved him so strongly she would prefer to
die.
By
being completely silent, Porphyria and the Damozel allow their lovers to create
elaborate fantasies that seem too ridiculous to be true. As the speaker of "Porphyria's
Lover" reveals, "And all night long we have not stirred" (59),
he shows that he is content with the words and feelings he has put into
Porphyria's mouth. The speaker of
"The Blessed Damozel" also finds a satisfaction as he closes the
final stanza: "I heard her tears" (144). These men find a satisfaction in the control
they are able to exert, forcing their own ideas upon the women of the
poems. Death becomes the ultimate
silence, allowing the speakers to say whatever hyperbolic statements they
please. While the texts do not suggest
that the women do not love the speakers, it does suggest that their feelings
are grossly overstated. They are able to
will them to be true without the slightest chance of protest.
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