How is power depicted in "My Last Duchess"?

Power can be positional, personal, coercive, or persuasive. The power presented by the duke in "My Last Duchess" is positional and coercive.

Positional power comes from the outside authority a person is granted because of their status position in a hierarchy. The duke ranks above the duchess because he is the duke, the powerful, patriarchal male in the relationship. He knows that everyone in the household is under his authority and expected to obey him. It doesn't matter if he is pleasant or if his commands are rational or humane or if he is a jerk and a despot: his title and gender have given him power. In contrast to him, the other men mentioned in the poem use their personal power—their personalities—to exercise a soft, relational power over the duchess by pleasing her.

The duke has the authority to use coercive power over the duchess—he can give orders and her smiles can fade. He can order her killed, and he does. He expects her to obey him because of what he can do to her punitively. He seems to make no effort to use persuasive power as do the other males in the poem. They compliment her, give her a cherry bough, or walk her around on a mule: they make themselves pleasant and so persuade her to like them, smile at them, and interact with them in a positive way. The duke does not seem to feel he needs to make any effort with his wife (if he did so, he never expresses this). His unrealistic expectation is that she adore and only pay attention to him because of his positional and coercive power.

How is power depicted in "My Last Duchess"?

"My Last Duchess" is about the power that the speaker, a Duke, had and still has over his dead wife, the eponymous Duchess.

The Duke keeps a painting of the Duchess behind a curtain which "none puts by" but him. In this way, the Duke has power over the Duchess in that he controls who now sees her and what stories people hear about her. He implies to his guest that the "glance" in the Duchess's expression, and the "spot / Of joy in the Duchess's cheek" are signals of her infidelity. The Duchess, of course, has no opportunity to defend herself or to put forward her own story.

Later in the poem, the Duke boasts that he "gave commands; / Then all smiles stopped together." The implication here is that the Duke, jealous of the Duchess's smiles and assuming that they were a sign of her infidelity, "stopped" them by taking her life. Thus, he had then the power to end her life, and he has now the power to control how, or if, she is remembered.

At the end of the poem, the speaker points to a bronze statue of Neptune "taming a sea-horse." This statue can be read as a symbol of the Duke's power over the Duchess. The Duke is represented by Neptune, the Roman god of the sea, and the Duchess is represented by the sea-horse. The difference in size between the god and the sea-horse represents the imbalance of power in their relationship. And the fact that Neptune is "taming" the sea-horse implies that this is what the Duke, at least from his perspective, used his power to do. He tamed the Duchess who he thought too wild and too independent.

How are power, possession, art, and marriage themes presented in "My Last Duchess"?

The themes of power, possession, art, and marriage are intricately blended in Robert Browning's poem “My Last Duchess.”

The speaker is obviously a powerful man, a duke, in a powerful position, and he uses his power to get exactly what he wants, with little or no regard to feelings or ideas of others. As the poem opens, he points out a painting of his last duchess. She is dead, but we don't yet know why. As the poem continues, we learn that the speaker became jealous of the attention his wife gave to other people and things. He wanted to be the most important person in her life, and he thought she should value the gift of his noble name more than anything else. Yet she did not, and for that, he punished her. “Then all smiles stopped together,” he notes, mysteriously and ominously. He has used his power on her.

Indeed, the speaker acts as if the duchess were his personal property. She was to obey his commands without question, for in his eyes, he owned her as much as he owns her portrait. She, therefore, should have given herself completely and only to him, consenting to being his object more than his wife. When she did not, she felt the consequences. He made her life miserable, and her only crime was giving attention and affection to others.

This tells us something about what the duke thinks about marriage, which is hardly presented in a positive light in this poem. The husband and wife are far from equal partners here. The duke dominated his duchess, jealously forcing her to conform to his demands. Now she is dead, and we do not know what has killed her. The suggestion is that her husband's cruelty at least led to her death if not caused it outright. That is left in mystery. The duke is now bargaining for another wife. He is concerned about the dowry of the count's daughter, and his object is to obtain both her and the dowry. For him, marriage is a business transaction at this point. We might well pity his next duchess.

Finally, the poem uses art as a starting point to tell the story of the speaker and his last duchess. The portrait is all that is left of the duchess now, and even it is under the duke's control, for no one draws back the curtain over it except for him. The portrait remains a source of pride for the duke even after he long became dissatisfied with its subject. Notice, too, how at the end of the poem, the speaker refers to another object of art, the bronze Neptune. We can tell from the speaker's words and tone that he enjoys owning these objects, and he also wants to enjoy “owning” his wives.

What is the role of art in Browning's "My Last Duchess"?

Art--particularly, the portrait of the Duchess and the sculpture of Neptune taming the sea horse--has a critical role in "My Last Duchess."

The comments made by the Duke on the portrait of the Duchess, for example, allow us to understand both the Duke and the Duchess (to a lesser extent), and the conclusions we ultimately reach about the Duke are the result, in part, of the artist's ability to catch important aspects of the Duchess's character in the portrait.

The artist has been able to capture the Duchess's "earnest glance," and the Duke's visitor has apparently asked a question about it: "How such a glance came there; so not the first/Are you to turn and ask thus."  This question, which was undoubtedly asked to please the Duke and compliment the Duchess, misfires in that the Duke begins his criticism of the Duchess's grace, genuine politeness, and openness with everyone.  After noting that the artist's comment about the difficulty of producing the "'Half-blush that dies along her throat,'" drew a blush from the Duchess, he begins his real criticism of her--"A heart--how shall I say--too soon made glad,/Too easily impressed. . . ."  Most of us would find joy in a person with such a light heart who could find pleasure in the smallest of things, but the Duke begins to show an aversion to the Duchess's ability to be joyful, not an expected reaction.

We learn in the next several lines that the Duke's resentment, for that what it is, goes much deeper than one would expect.  He recites a litany of things that gave her joy, and then, in a paroxysm of jealousy, gets to the root of his resentment--she likes everything equally "as if she ranked/My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name with anybody's gift."  He continues to berate her for not understanding his hurt pride and inability to "be lessoned," to be taught what she should value rather than what she does value.  Because he is so stiff with pride, he chose "never to stoop," in other words, never to treat her as an equal and explain his feelings so that she could understand his hurt pride.

His answer to her inability to understand his feelings--keep in mind the fact that he didn't explain himself to her adequately--was to command her not be so easily pleased, command which only caused her sadness.  And, without any explanation, the Duchess disappears from the discussion.

The second piece of art--Neptune taming the sea horse--is a emblem of the Duke's controlling personality--just as he tried to control the Duchess and failed, perhaps resulting in her death, the statue of Neptune controlling the sea horse, which was made specifically for the Duke, exemplifies the Duke's view of proper domination and subordination.

Woe to the prospective duchess the Duke and his visitor go downstairs to discuss with her father.

What role does art, collecting, and ownership play in "My Last Duchess"?

The Duke represents himself as an art collector, yet he is obviously a cold, selfish, greedy person who is insensitive to beauty. He is more interested in the value of a painting or sculpture than in its aesthetic merit. The same is true of his deceased wife. He valued her as a beautiful possession and was completely blind to her merits as a human being. He is describing his last Duchess throughout most of his monologue, but he is looking at her painting and not really thinking about the admirable young woman herself. Proof of his ignorance of real beauty and of real art is the fact that he makes a point of mentioning the names of the artists responsible for two of the works he shows his visitor. Fra Pandolf was a fictitious artist, but the reader can gather from the repetition of the artist's name that this artist was famous and consequently that his paintings had high monetary value. The same is apparently true of the fictitious Claus of Innsbruck who made the Duke a bronze reproduction of the statue of Neptune. Art collection with the Duke is synonymous with greed and selfishness. Unfortunately, this is true of many contemporary art collectors who look on art as investments.

What role does art, collecting, and ownership play in "My Last Duchess"?

As the narrator, the Duke, shows the painting of his late wife the Duchess to his guest, clearly he is very pleased with it, even calling it "a wonder".  It is also clear, as the monologue progresses, that he was very displeased with the duchess herself.  She took too much joy in simple things and simple people: joy equal, in fact, to her affection for him and the grand heritage he bestowed on her.  He cannot take this; his ego is such that he demands her affection solely for himself, her identity to be his alone.  As long as she is just as happy with a sunset, for instance, as with him and his estate, he cannot truly own her.   And this is intolerable to him.  He has her killed.

She lives, now, in his painting and now he can truly own her.  She is a valuable piece in his collection.  She is curtained, even, and only he can draw the curtain.  She can smile only on him now, and she is his.

Surely the implications of this for the Duke's prospective second marriage are not lost on the guest, but just to underline the point, the Duke refers him to another piece in his collection as they move away from the Duchess.  He asks him, casually as it were, to behold his sculpture of Neptune taming the sea horses.  Neptune, the god of the sea, is taking ownership of those in his realm.  Likewise, we understand, a wife of the Duke must be tamed and owned.

How is power used in "My Last Duchess?" 

This dramatic monologue is especially significant among Browning's works, because it seems to be forward-looking in its understanding of the male-female dynamic of Browning's own time (and earlier, as the setting of the poem indicates). The Duke at first is celebrating the apparent happiness he brought to his Duchess, although he qualifies it by admitting other things made her happy also:

....'twas not

Her husband's presence only, called that spot of joy

Into the Duchess' cheek....

As the Duke continues to speak, he reveals the jealousy of a husband who wants to monopolize the wife's attention; in other words, he doubts the complete power he wishes to have over her:

....She thanked me,—good! but thanked

Somehow—I know not how—as if she ranked

My gift of a nine-hundred years old name

With anybody's gift.

The "ideal" relationship based on dominance, which the Duke has desired, has deteriorated in his telling of the history of his marriage:

Oh, sir, she smiled, no doubt

Whene'er I passed her; but who passed without

Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands;

Then all smiles stopped together.

This is the disillusionment of a man who had assumed his power over a woman to have been automatic, but when he has realized it's not so, he then makes it explicit: he "gives commands," and so ruins even the artificial joy that seemingly existed before. That it was all the same to him as anything else is indicated by the final lines, in which he evidently regards the painting of the Duchess (and the Duchess herself) as no more significant than a mythological figure:

Notice Neptune, though,

Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity,

Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me!

How is power used in "My Last Duchess?" 

Duke Ferrara, the speaker in Robert Browning's dramatic monologue "My Last Duchess," wields absolute power within his sphere of influence. The poem gives insight into his power over artists and their work, over his employees, over his wife, and over the Count and his representative. The Duke commissioned artists to create for him: Fra Pandolf to paint a portrait of his last Duchess and Claus of Innsbruck to cast a statue in bronze of Neptune taming a seahorse. The Duke displays a derisive tone toward Fra Pandolf when he speculates how Fra Pandolf was able to call "that spot of joy into the Duchess' cheek." He was evidently satisfied with the painting, though, because he shows it off to the person he is speaking to in the poem, namely the agent from a Count who is there to negotiate the dowry for the Duke's next Duchess. The Duke keeps the painting behind a curtain and only he draws it open for visitors to view the painting; thus he exercises full power over the work of the artist.

As the owner of a large estate, the Duke no doubt employs many servants on the grounds and in the house. One of them happened to break off a "bough of cherries" in the orchard, presenting it to the Duchess. For that Ferrara calls him "some officious fool," and the reader might wonder whether that servant was reprimanded for his effrontery. 

The Duke's power over his Duchess was supreme. He believed that to instruct her about what pleased and displeased him would lessen his power; it would be "stooping." Rather than lose any of his power, he "gave commands; then all smiles stopped together." The reader assumes the Duke had the Duchess killed, usurping complete control over her life.

Finally, the Duke holds power over the agent to whom he is speaking. Apparently the agent, appalled at hearing the fate of the former Duchess, wants to make a getaway. The Duke stops him, saying, "Nay, we'll go together down, sir." He also implies that he will hold the power in the negotiations for the dowry, saying, "No just pretense of mine for dowry will be disallowed." 

Ferrara is a man who is used to having his own way and displaying great power over everyone he comes in contact with.