Victorian Literature Assignment

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Name :- Jagruti R. Vasani

Sem :- 2

Roll No. :-14

Paper :-6 The Victorian Literature

Subject :- Violence Against Women in Browning’s Poetry

Submitted To :- Smt. S.B. Gardi Department of English

                              Maharajakrishnakumarsinhji University Bhavnagar

ROBERT BROWNING

Born :- 7 May 1812

Died :- 12 December 1889

Occupation :- Poet

Literary Moment :- Victorian

Notable Work :- Men and Women

                             The Ring and The Book

                              Dramatis Personae

                            Dramatic Lyrics

                            Dramatic Lyrics and Romances

                            Asolando

Work on Poem :- My last Duchess

                               Porphria’s Lover

                              The Ring and The Book

                              Rabbi Ben Ezra

                              Fra Lippo Lippi

# POWER :-

  Men Power & Women power

          Robert Browning’s two poems, “Porphyria’s lover” and “My Last Duchess”, have some striking similarities. Both feature men who seem mentaly disturbed in his poetry’s description, Further, both of these men had relationship with “strong” women who, despite apparently loving them, they each ended up killing. After that they were happier that’s the mentaly condition of men in his poetry.

       Yet the most fascinating similarity is that both of these poem deal with Power Dynamics based on gender. Intially, the females have the power and the men do not. The men feel threateaned by this, so that they choose to take this power is to kill the women.The power switches from the women to the men.  The first observation that supports this point is that originally the men do not have power rather than women. One way that this is demonstrated to the reader is the author’s choice to make the men insane. IN the poem the man is paranoid. The craziness of the main character is a bit more subtle. The man in “Prophyria’s Lover” also lacks power because he is of a lower social status than the woman, that the woman attended the feast, and the reader can infer that the man was not invited to this feast. The Duke, on the other hand, is of a high social class, but the way that he keeps emphasizing his power makes him seem, ironically, less powerful. He describes his last name as his “gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name”, which his wife was foolish enough to “[rank]/My gift… with anybody’s gift”. He sounds like he is bragging, which makes the reader lose respect for him.

    t some point in these two poems, both the males and the females hold power, yet there is a difference in the types of power that they have. Power, in fact, is a very general term that can be described in many different ways. There are two main types of power that are visible in these two poems. The first kind, which is seen in the men, is power over someone else. It is the ability to control another person. The men are seeking to control the women’s behavior, as they are offended and threatened by it. The second type of power, which is demonstrated by the women, is the ability and freedom to do what one wants to do. The women do not seek to control their partners, they just want the freedom to behave however they choose to. These two types of power are significant because they reflect what each of the characters value. Because of this contrast in values, the women receive the sympathy and respect of the reader. Therefore, although the men end up with the power, it is the women who seem to win.

Condition of Woman In Victorian Era :-

# Symbolize the home

# The Repository of Traditional

# Traditional foci for the Asthetic

   Woman particulary for the Victorians, symbolize the home. The repository of traditional values. Their violent death can stand in for the death of society. The woman in Browning’s poetry in particular are often depicted as sexuality open : this may show that society has transformed so radically that even the domestic. The traditional has been altered and corrupted. This violence also suggests the struggle between asthetic and morals in Victorian art : while woman typically serve as symbols of values ( the moral education offered by the mother, the purity of one who stays within the confines of the home and remains untainted by the outside world), they also represent traditional foci for the aesthetic ( in the form of sensual physical beauty) ; conflict between the two is potentially explosive, controlling and even destroying women is a way to try to prevent such explosions, to preserve a society that has already changed beyond recognition.

 Characteristics of Browning’s Poetry :

1)   Multiple perspectives on single events

2)   The purpose of art

3)   The relationship between art and morality

  #  These poems are ‘The ring and The Book’, ‘My Last Dchess’, ‘Porphria’s Loves’, ‘The Laboratry’ using the libral feminist and psychological theories. It’s argues that while women fight to challenge tradition and convention put by men patriarchy to impede their freedom, men on their part are bent on maintaining this tradition and convention put by men/patriarchy, end up paying with their lives. In this connection Robert Browning’s stand is that women should fight for their freedom even if it means dying by presenting these scenarior in these poems, Browning seeks to show the injustice done to women and in the process, calls the attention of the powers that be for a review or revision of social habits that will enable the women to fully realize herself in the process, and humanity in general.

    Violence against women has been an interesting and rich area for feminists. There are three categories of violence against women:

1)   Physical Violence

2)   Verbal Violence

3)   Sexual Violence

Physical violence will refer to the beating of one’s spouse. Verbal refers to insulting us threatening one’s spouse. Many feminists have focused on pornography.

To Robin Morgan

        “pornography is the theory and rape the practice.”

Hartman says: ‘ In pornography women are depicted as sexual objects and men rendered as consumers who says mackninon, “ Desperately went women to deperatly want possession and cruelty and dehumanization.”

 Browning wrote many poems in which, we see madness because as baugh says in a literary history of England : He says to understand people of the most rained sorts, and because the good present fever problems, he is fascinated by the bad.” His poems of most lasting appeal are psychological stories. The intricacies of motives are disentangled and light is thrown upon the self deceiver even as she seeks to justify himself in 1402.

    Secondaly browning junior had developed a liking for tales of  crime from his father lastly and most importantly , Melissa martain explains it in  spark notes on Robert Browning is so interested in violence against women. What symbolic purpose might it verse ?’ women particularly  for the Victorians symbolize the home. The repository of traditional values. Their violent death can stand in for the death of society.

     The women in browning’s poetry in particular are often depicted as sexually open: this may show that society has transformed so radically that even the domestic and the tradition, have been altered and corrupted. This violence also suggest the struggle between asthetics and morals in Victorian art.

    Violence against women by men in browning’s poetry, mostly or always end in death.  Hougland says , “man use violence when women don’t pay attention to them.” She thinks that “ protecting and predation emerge from the same ideology of male dominance.

#  PATRIARCHY: THE SOURCE OF VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN

Patriarchy comes from the Greek word patria, meaning father and arché meaning rule. The Wikipedia Free Encyclopaedia sees patriarchy is an anthropological term used to define the sociological condition, where, the male members of a society tend to predominate in positions of power, with the more powerful the position, the more likely it is that a male will hold that position... Patriarchal rule still governs most of the world’s religious, school, and family systems. Patriarchy therefore refers to male dominance, male supremacy, male rule, male privileges, male values or male hierarchy. The majority of the higher economic, political, industrial, financial, religious, and social positions are held by men. The term is used today by feminist to replace the old words “Male chauvinism” and “Sexism”. Patriarchy is perpetuated mostly by men and a small proportion of women. The term patriarchy, is different from patrilineality and patrilocality just like the word matriarchy is different from the word matrilineality and matrilocality.

    Browning’s preferred tale or myth was that of “Andromeda’s rescue by Perseus”. This was a parallel of his own rescue of Elizabeth Barrett from her father’s house which is the same as the rescue of Pompilia by the priest Caponsacchi from Guido’s house. Canon Caponsacchi has much of Browning. Ian Jack writes: “There is a good deal of Browning himself in Caponsacchi, and he enunciates the poet’s belief in the occasional need for the hero” (283). When in the poem Caponsacchi says “I am, on earth, as well as out of it / A relegated priest; when exile ends / I mean to do my duty and live long” is inspired by the manly recoil of Browning and his refusal to be crushed by his sorrow. Robert Browning in his life played the role of a saviour to Elizabeth Barett Browning just like Canon Capon Sacchi does to Pompilia. We see the same male saviour figure in the poem “The Flight of the Duchess” who helps the Duchess to run away from the oppression of the Duke. Wylie Sypher in an Introduction to The Ring and the Book says “Guido in all his bestiality, is a version of the same Browning hero who appeared as a Porphyria’s lover, or as the Duke in “The Statue and the Bust”. All of them are what he calls “immoralists”. To him “Guido is a devalued immoralist. He boasts of being a wolf by nature.”

CONCLUSIONS :-

When we look at the three kinds of violence, we outlined at the beginning of this chapter: physical,verbal and sexual, we realize that the dominant violence in Browning’s poetry is physical. Pompilia is killed with hands(a knife), the Duchess, Porphyria and Pauline in “The Laboratory” with poison delivered by the hands. In Browning’s poetry, verbal and sexual violence is absent. Of all these three kinds of violence, the one which kills most is physicalviolence. Verbal and sexual violence hardly kill. What kills is physical violence as we see in the poetry of Robert browning. Liberal feminism is against patriarchy because it is patriarchy that encourages and perpetuates violence against women. The fundamental human rights that all liberals support include the right to life, liberty and property.When men use patriarchy to kill women and refuse them any liberty and property rights, Browning is against this kind of system. Browning made it clear in his poetry that he does not see why any emancipated man should hold any woman under subjection. He reminds us that little is achieved in life without liberty. Men will benefit if they give their women liberty.

                                                          # Thank You #