duke's intolerance of his wife's very normal behavior leads him to have a relationship problem with her. He shows his lack of empathy in how he treats her, implying he had her killed:

“My Last Duchess” by Robert Browning comes from an actual historical incident.  In the sixteenth century Italy, Duke Ferrara married fourteen year-old Lucrezia, who died within two years.  The Duke courted and soon married someone else. The Duke is believed to have poisoned his wife so that he could marry the other girl. 

Point-of–view

The speaker in the poem is the Duke himself.  His speech is highly structured. Control is a part of his personality, so as he speaks, it is obvious that Browning makes the reader believe that the Duke chooses his words carefully.  He would be considered an unreliable narrator.  He tells only his side of the story.  As the poem progresses, it becomes obvious that the Duke has lost touch with reality.

Setting

The setting for the poem is Italy in the sixteenth century.  The specific setting is the palace of the Duke in a gallery which contains his private collection. 

Form

Browning described this poem as a “dramatic lyric.”  Today, the poem would be called a dramatic monologue because the Duke does all of the speaking.  The poem is written with rhymed couplets.  The rhyme scheme would be AABBCCDD, and so on.  With this pattern, Browning demonstrated the control of the Duke over and his viciousness towards his late wife.

Themes

The primary themes of the story connect together through the personality of the Duke.  Browning intended to illustrate the power that was available to the Duke in the time period.  His control included the complete dominance of his wife.  She was his possession as much as his lands were.  

To add to this theme, the duke is controlled by his jealousy concerning his wife’s attention to anyone other than himself.  He does not like the artist giving his wife such a smile with a blush. He wonders about the person that she is looking at and giving attention to. Every smile and blush unless it is for him drives him to distraction.  He is so upset by her behavior that the only way to fix the situation was to murder his Duchess.

Summary

The Duke brings a servant of a Count up to his private gallery to show him the picture of his last Duchess. The picture portrays a beautiful young woman with a smile and blush on her face. The Duke was told that the artist asked for her to smile for the picture.

• The Duke begins to criticize his wife.
• She smiles for someone else in the picture.
• She was too easily made happy and looked around too much.
• She thanked people for gifts much the same as she thanked her husband.
• She did not appreciate the respected aristocratic name that he had given her by marrying her.
• She did not respond to his lessons in behavior nor listen to his commands to stop smiling.

The Duke continues on to say that he stopped the smiling.  In her picture, she looks as if she were alive. 

And if she let
Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set
Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse…

He asks the man to accompany him back downstairs. On the way out, he brags to the man about a statue that was built for him.  The reader learns that the Duke is courting the Count’s daughter, hoping to marry her. He does not care about the dowry, just the daughter.

This is an interesting poem which illustrates the strange behavior of the Duke who has obviously had his wife killed for insane reasons.  The overall effect of the poem comes from the man who does not hesitate to kill his wife because she displayed her joy of life.

Tone reveals a poet's attitude toward their subject. In this poem the tone is darkly ironic. Browning uses the duke's own words to show that he is a disturbed individual who has committed an unjustifiable act of murder—the opposite of the impression the duke intends to make.

The poem is a dramatic monologue. In it, the speaker, the duke, is explaining to a courier sent to arrange his next marriage what happened to his last wife.

Irony occurs when words or situations mean the opposite of what is intended. The duke fully believes the story he tells justifies the death of his young wife. However, our response as readers is one of horror. The innocent young duchess did little more than to show kindness to people around her, such as the artist painting her portrait or the person who gives her a cherry bough. She smiled, blushed, or was pleased. The duke finds this behavior intolerable. He believes he should be the only one to receive positive attention from her. He even feels in competition with the "white mule" that pleases her to ride around on.

As the duke puts it, the former duchess acts

as if she ranked
My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name
With anybody’s gift.

The tone of Robert Browning`s `My Last Duchess' is not a simple matter. The poem is a dramatic monologue spoken in the voice of the Duke. Thus we can talk about the tone the Duke uses, but the effect of the poem as a whole is to undermine the Duke and reveal aspects of his character that he might be trying to keep hidden. Thus the subtext has a rather different tone than the surface text.

The Duke`s tone is that of a collector showing off a collection, and speaking of his Duchess in the same distantly appreciative manner in which he speaks of bronzes. There is an undercurrent of possessiveness to his speech though, that is amplified into a sort of cold suppressed anger by the time he reveals that he `stopped`his wife`s smiles.

The poem as a whole though, gives an effect of repulsion in reaction to the Duke.

[eNotes educators are only permitted to answer one question per posting. Additional questions need to be asked in a separate post.]

Robert Browning's "My Last Duchess" is my favorite of this author's poems. Perhaps one of the reasons is the tone of the poem.

More often than not, we (as readers) are quick to react to the mood—which is the author's intention. However, some people think that the mood and tone are the same. There actually is a significant difference. While the mood is how the audience is supposed to feel about the subject of the writing, the tone is how the author feels about the subject. In this poem, it is an interesting distinction. The speaker in the poem is actually a raging, jealous and murderous man—however, at first reading, the reader might only come away with a sense of distaste. (It is important to always read a poem at least twice, carefully, to get what you missed in the previous reading.)

Upon closer study, the reader may be able to perceive (especially by the reaction of the narrator's audience to his speech) that the author is probably insane. Specifically, by the end of the poem, the Count's envoy is ready to leave and the Duke of Ferrara tells him that he will go with the man and greet the Count; then a second time the Duke has to insist he will accompany the man. (We may infer that the envoy does not like what he hears from the Duke and is anxious to part company with his host.)

So, if the mood (how the reader feels) is one of disgust or even horror, is the author (Browning) feeling the same way? In my opinion, the author is repulsed and offended by the narrator's (the Duke's) behavior; we can see this in the details the speaker offers as he comments on the behavior of his wife. However, more importantly by far, are the details we can glean as Browning provides telling descriptions of the Duke's responses.

Of Browning's poem it is said:

In [the poem, Browning] paints a devastating self-portrait of royalty, a portrait that doubtless reveals more of the duke’s personality than [the Duke of] Ferrara intends.

The Duke of Ferrara is the speaker. Ironically, his criticism of his wife reflects poorly on him, not on her.

We learn that the Duke hires a monk to paint his wife's portrait—in one day. We sense that he was jealous of her and would not allow her alone in the company of another, even if it were a man who had vowed to live a chaste life. He notes that the monk's compliments, and not only her husband's presence, brought "that spot / Of joy" (14-15) to her cheeks. He complains that she was kind to everyone—which is irksome to him. It seems unreasonable that a man would be angry that his wife was a nice person—for there is never any indication that she was ever behaved inappropriately with anyone. The only real problem is the Duke's skewed perceptions.

The Duke points out that it was small things that she prized:

My favour at her breast,
The dropping of the daylight in the West,
The bough of cherries some officious fool
Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule
She rode with round the terrace -- all and each
Would draw from her alike the approving speech,  
Or blush, at least. She thanked men, -- 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. (25-34)

He places his "favour" or approval, of her at the top of the list of things for which she should be thankful. He also points out that she was happy to see a sunset, to receive a "bough of cherries" and or ride on her "white mule," but he finds no joy in his wife's delight in the world around her. A husband might complain if his wife was never happy, but the Duke is annoyed not only that she was happy, but also because she found anything wonderful other than being married to him. He is exceedingly miffed that she found equal satisfaction in having his age-old family name that she also experienced with a sunset or a white mule. His over-inflated ego perceives that she is not as impressed with his title and name as he thinks she should be—but that she shows equal pleasure in all things.

Browning draws for us a mental picture of a member of the aristocracy that believes himself to be by far the most important person in the world, who demanded that his wife believe the same.  

Undoubtedly, though, the most dominant feature of the duke’s personality is a godlike desire for total control of his environment [...] the duke sees himself as a god who has tamed/will tame his duchess.

Unfairly, Ferrara would not stoop to tell his wife what about her "disgusts" him. She angered him without knowing why. She smiled at him the same way she smiled at everyone, and he resented this.

However, then everything changes:

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. There she stands
As if alive. (43-47)

It should not be missed that the Duchess must be dead for how else would he be able to arrange for a second marriage? We can infer that the more she smiled at others (which would seem to be her natural character—being pleasant to all she met), the angrier the Duke became until he gave "commands." We read that all her smiles stopped completely, and we can infer that she did not experience depression or shed tears, but that she died. We can also infer that his command was the order to have her murdered! Even more appalling is that he does not miss a beat in his conversation as he slides from this statement smoothly on to the image of the painting, where (he notes) its subject stands as if alive.

Browning's tone seems to be this: here is a man who expects the world to bow to him. Here is a man who will not be dominated by law or morality: he uses his position and wealth to live as he pleases, answerable to no one. Even now he plans to marry again to receive a rich dowry to further support his lifestyle. We can assume that Browning detested members of the nobility who saw themselves as gods and treated others without concern, were accountable to no one, and were capable of criminal behavior without fear of punishment or censure.

Browning's structure of the poem also supports the tone:

Interestingly, unlike the traditional neoclassic heroic couplet, where lines are end-stopped, Browning favors enjambment, and the run-on line suggests the duke’s inability to control everything—his inability to be a god.

Browning artfully passes judgment on the Duke of Ferrara—the man whose own words find him guilty—while also providing a glimpse into the tyrannical power practiced by some members of the aristocracy, living a life of privilege during the 19th Century.

This is an excellent question, for the identity of speaker is central to understanding not only the relationship between the speaker and his wife, but also in better understanding his "last duchess," a woman who can no longer speak to defend herself.

The first thing the speaker tells us is very important in comprehending what has transpired in the Duke's home.

That's my last Duchess painted on the wall, 
Looking as if she were alive.

The reader knows now that the woman in the picture is dead. "Last" duchess infers that she will not be the Duke's final duchess. As we read on, the speaker describes the painting to the person that is with him. We learn that the picture is always behind a curtain so that no one's eyes but the speaker's are able to look upon "the depth and passion of its earnest glance." (While it is grammatically correct, I am startled by the use of "its" as opposed to "her" glance, as he seems to objectify her.) It would appear that the Duke's visitor is the only other person to have had the privilege of looking on the deceased woman's likeness.

The reader discovers that the woman found happiness, but not just in her husband's gaze:

...'twas not 
Her husband's presence only, called that spot 
Of joy into the Duchess' cheek...

This comment demonstrates how unhappy the Duke is that he was not the center of her attention. She was an innocent, She knows that the painter's compliments were only his attempts to be courteous, but still they brought her "joy," and the speaker faults her for this:

She had 
A heart—how shall I say?—too soon made glad,
Too easily impressed: she liked whate'er 
She looked on, and her looks went everywhere.

The reader can begin to question the character of the speaker. Who could possibly complain that his wife was too happy? It seems a ridiculous statement, but note what her "looks went everywhere." This is in direct contrast to the will of the man who just mentioned that she found pleasure beyond seeing just his face. He is insanely possessive; his covetousness is further evident as he hides her image behind a curtain.

The speaker did not love his wife but wanted to possess everything about her: that her pleasure be found only in him and that no one take her attention away from him. In that he would not allow others to see his wife's painting, we can only imagine how he felt when other men in public looked at his wife.

There is a tinge of unhealthy resentment and obsession in the speaker. He resented that another man would hand her a "bough" broken from a tree with cherries on it. Anyone's attention she politely appreciated (with no inappropriate intent on her part). The speaker is enraged because she thanked these others as if anything they could do, say or give her could compare to the immeasurable honor he bestowed upon her:

She thanked men,—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 Duke is essentially point out that nothing compares to the honor he paid her by giving her is ancient family name. His attitude allows the reader to infer that he is unreasonable in his expectations...that her kindness should be shared with no one but him because she married into an age-old family. (This is just another piece of evidence to support the knowledge that he did not love his wife.)

The speaker goes on to say that he did not "lesson" (teach) her about his difficulties with her behavior—which began to disgust him: she either did too much or not enough. How much easier it would have been if she understand what he wanted. He refused to do so. (Another example of his lack of concern for her or the marriage—and his constant attention to "self.") For him, "stooping" to educate her was out of the question. ("Stooping" conveys his sense of superiority over her.)

...and I choose / Never to stoop.

His former duchess continued to smile at others, but wasn't she bestowing that same smile upon him—as if the others were his equal? His jealous nature has become impossible for the reader to ignore. His irrational and insane hatred of her is apparent. Then he points out that he let his anger be known to her:

I gave commands;
Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands 
As if alive.

At this juncture of the poem, we can only wonder what has happened to his "last duchess." The Duke's bullying may have caused his beautiful and gracious wife to stop smiling completely, but the reader should ask how it really happened? Was it simply because he was so demanding and oppressive that she became sad? Or could it be that death caused this change? For without missing a beat, he immediately draws his companion's attention back to the painting, pointing out how alive she looks. This sudden shift in his conversation allows him to intentionally circumvent any question that might arise as to what actually happened to her.  

There can be little doubt that his "last duchess" is dead, and there is good reason to believe that he was involved in her early, unexplained death. 

As the poem moves to its conclusion, we note that the visitor has heard enough and jumps up. The Duke recognizes that his visitor is ready to leave—saying, "Oh! You're getting up?" He notes then that he will follow the man: "Fine then, we can both go down to see the rest of the group."

Will't please you rise? We'll meet 
The company below, then.

The Duke makes all speed to keep up with the man who is, it appears, the representative of the Count. Apparently, he is there to see to the arrangements of marriage between the Count's daughter and the Duke. The Duke speaks of the woman's dowry: an advantageous marriage to the Count's daughter would bring money into the Duke's coffers. However, this deceitful and conniving man insists that his true interest is in the Count's daughter. We can also infer that if the first wife and her lovely disposition did not please him, the second probably will not either, but the Duke does not care because money is his desire, not another wife. Fortunately for the young woman in question, the Count's emissary will not be promoting this union—he sees the Duke as he truly is.

The reader realizes that the last duchess was a lovely and well-liked woman. While the Duke is trying to promote an inaccurate image of the former duchess, he manages instead to convey what a monster he is! The impact of Browning's choice of speaker allows the reader to understand how horrific this woman's life was. Had an admirer written this poem, we might imagine him to be an obsessed stalker. In that it is her husband, we recognize that this woman was a prisoner from the very beginning. She did not idolize her husband: she was too much her own person. His insane nature would have made it impossible for any woman to please him. Unknown to her, this sealed her fate from the moment they married. Instead of a duchess, she became a victim instead.

The revelation contained by these lines is that the duke’s “last duchess” is no longer alive and that he is responsible, in a very direct way, for her death. He claims that he “gave commands” and “all [her] smiles stopped together” (lines 45, 46). He has already expressed significant irritation at the fact that she would offer “the same smile” to everyone and anyone, regardless of how trifling their gift to her was (45). The duke wanted her to value him and his “gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name” more than the other things, like a bough of cherries, a white mule, or a pretty sunset (33).

He also says that he would not simply communicate to her what it is that he wanted, that “here [she] miss[es], / Or there exceed[s] the mark,” because he elected “Never to stoop” (38–39, 42–43). In other words, his pride will not permit him to instruct her that she must value him above all others; he wants her to do it without having to be told to do it. So he has her killed by someone, we can assume, to whom he gave the “commands” he mentions in line 45. Until we learn that he has had her killed so that he can start over and find a new duchess who will assuage his ego, we do not really understand the extent of his pride. He is not just petty and proud, but he is also so unyielding as to be murderous as a result.

Up until the lines just preceding 45–47, the speaker gives the impression that all was well between himself and the Duchess. Then, finally:

[...] I gave commands;
Then all smiles stopped together.

This conveys the admission by the speaker that (not unusually for his time, and later) he became the typical arrogant, domineering husband. Prior to this we saw mere hints of his growing dissatisfaction with her:

[...] She thanked men,—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 Duke then states that he never actually told his Duchess what displeased or even "disgusted" him, since this would have been "some stooping, and I chose / Never to stoop."

Altogether, the picture the Duke himself draws in words is that of a dysfunctional marriage; though as we've noted, his own behavior seems quite "normal" in an age when women, even of the aristocracy as here, had few rights. The close of the monologue suggests that he regarded the last Duchess as a possession, on par with the "Neptune [...] which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me."

In these lines, the Duke tells the Count's emissary that:

This grew; I gave commands;
Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands
As if alive.

Prior to saying this, the Duke had been describing the behavior of his former duchess. While he is critical and angry about her behavior, believing her to have to have been overly warm and friendly to people other than himself, we have no indication that she did not die a natural death.

The words above, however, suggest that the Duke had his former wife killed. He says he "gave commands" and her "smiles stopped." He then points to her portrait and says that she is memorialized there as if alive.

All of this is chilling and suggests that the Duke is angrier than even his critical words about his dead wife suggest. These lines indicate that the Duke is willing to go to any lengths to be in control and that he prefers an immobile portrait to a living person. The lines imply that rather than simply being jealous and controlling, the Duke may be sociopathic or severely mentally ill. One hopes the Count relays this information to the father of the prospective new bride.

The Duke is talking to an emissary of a count. The Duke is trying to marry the count's daughter, so he is trying to impress the emissary. In describing the painting of his most recent duchess, he communicates more about himself than he does of his late wife. He notes that the Duchess's look of "joy" in the painting is not just because he was present during the painting, her joy being caused by his presence. He claims that she had a heart "too soon made glad." In other words, he claims that she liked to be looked at and liked looking at others. This is his coy way of saying she was flirtatious. But what really comes across here is his jealousy. He would not even leave her alone with a friar (Fra Pandold). 

In lines 45-47, he seems to respond to a question posed by the count's emissary, asking if the Duchess ever smiled. The Duke replies that she did smile but that as he became more oppressive (commanding), she stopped smiling. Here, he quite blatantly admits that as he became more domineering, she became less and less happy. He says, "I gave commands; / Then all smiles stopped together." The Duke ends his dramatic monologue to the emissary by calling his attention to a statue of the God Neptune taming a seahorse. The Duke unwittingly illustrates his own behavior towards his late wife in showing his admiration for a God controlling a "lesser" creature. This mirrors his controlling nature. 

In this poem, the duke addresses the servant of a man, a "Count," who has come to discuss the terms of a wedding to take place between the duke and the Count's daughter.

The duke refers to the Count as "your master," as he is the employer of his auditor. He also speaks of the Count's "fair daughter's self" and her dowry, the sum generally paid by a wife's family to the new husband.

In order for the duke to be searching for a new duchess, his last duchess must no longer be living. The duke is, evidently, a man who likes to be in control and who likes to have his pride gratified by others. He shows off the portrait of his "last Duchess" alongside other pieces of art he owns, as though she is just another object in his collection. He always wanted to be able to direct to whom and when she ought to smile and blush, and now he can, because he has hidden her portrait behind a curtain which "none puts by [...] but [him]." In other words, no one else is allowed to draw the curtain and see her face, her beauty, and her blush unless he allows them to. He has finally gained the control over her that he long wanted but would not "stoop" to explain to her. He wanted her to value his gift of an ancient name over all the other much less valuable gifts she received.

Therefore, it makes sense that when the duke mysteriously says that he "gave commands; / Then all smiles stopped together." Readers can assume that he had her killed so that he could start again with a new wife, which is what he's doing now. In the next line, he says, "There she stands / As if alive." Thus, we know that she is dead, and he seems to be responsible for it.

It isn't explicitly spelled out, but we can reasonably infer that the duchess was killed on the orders of her husband. As he explains to the Count's emissary in chilling, matter-of-fact language, he gave commands, and then all the Duchess's smiles stopped.

From the rest of the poem we gather the rationale behind the Duke's murderous actions. Apparently, the Duchess used to smile an awful lot; in fact, she smiled at just about everyone with whom she came into contact. And the Duke hated this. He also hated the fact that the Duchess had kind words for everyone she met and was immensely thankful for the slightest courtesy or gift. The Duke believed this somehow undermined his ancient title, as the Duchess, in giving her thanks to all and sundry, was effectively placing her noble husband on the same level as the most humble court functionary.

"My Last Duchess" a subtly patterned poem in pentameter that steps into the next line is the dramatic monologue of the Duke Ferrara as he negotiates a new marriage with the emissary for another wealthy family.  As the Duke passes the portrait of the young Duchess who has died, he mentions her with less than regret to his guest that the painter Fra Pandolf made "by design when he portrayed "that picured countenance."  Continuing his narrative, the Duke tells the emissary that Fra Pandolf

chanced to say, 'Her mantle laps/Over my lady's wrist too much,'or, 'Paint/Must never hope to reproduce the faint /Half-flush that dies along her throat.'

As the Duke's monlogue about the painting continues, it becomes apparent that the young woman's "looks went everywhere."  When the Duchess

thanked men--good! but thanked/Somehow--I know not how--as if she ranked/My gifft of a nine-hundred-years-old name/With anybody's gift

the Duke is too insulted to excuse her and chooses "Never to stoop.  He gives his wife "commands," but she ignores them.  So, "all smiles stopped together."  And, in the same breath, the duke nonchalantly says, "There she stands/As if alive" and continues his business of a new marriage without missing a beat of the pentameter.  The Duke dismissed her life just as he has dismissed the painting.  And, since this poem's setting is the Renaissance, the assumption by the reader must be that the Duchess has been killed since divorce in Renaissance Italy was nonexistent.

There are several relationships in Robert Browning's "My Last Duchess."

The relationship between the Duke and the Duchess, like that between the Duke and his art objects, is often described as that of a collector, who values both art and the Duchess as possessions, reflecting on his own status.

The Duke portrays the relationship of Durchess and painter as possibly adulterous, but he is an unreliable narrator, and thus the reader is more likely to assume that the Duchess' smiles simply meant that she was generally friendly and good-natured rather than a harlot.

The relation of Duke to emissary is that of a noble negotiating with a messenger over an acquisition.

In Browning's "My Last Duchess," clues to the nature of relationships with regard to the Duke (the speaker in the poem) can be found in the poem's many verses—and its title.

The title, "My Last Duchess," indicates that this is the Duke's former wife. My "last" could infer that he has had more than one wife. However, the "last" is the subject of the lifelike painting that he is showing off to his visitor, identified as "the emissary." (His function will become clearer at the poem's close.)

While the painting is lovely, the Duke does not express any words of love or longing for this seemingly remarkable woman. Instead, he speaks first of a perceived curiosity of those who see the painting (including his guest) as to what inspired the passionate look upon her face—that the painter caught so precisely—but none would dare ask:

Strangers like you that pictured countenance,
The depth and passion of its earnest glance,
But to myself they turned (since none puts by
The curtain I have drawn for you, but I)
And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst,
How such a glance came there...

The Duke is possessive, noting that only he can draw the curtain from her portrait to show others: he alone has that control. Then he says:

Sir, 't was not
Her husband's presence only, called that spot
Of joy into the Duchess' cheek...

The Duke infers that the Duchess may have been unfaithful—once again showing his jealousy. There seems no proof that such was the case, but he is insecure (or smart) enough to believe that she did not look to him to get that "deep, passionate and earnest" look on her face.

The Duke insults his wife again by saying that even compliments paid to her by a [lowly] painter would make her blush—his insult is that she was too easily impressed by the words of others, even words that he insists are nothing but "courtesy" on the speaker's part. And then...

She had
A heart -- how shall I say? -- too soon made glad,
Too easily impressed; she liked whate'er
She looked on, and her looks went everywhere.

While this is complimentary, the Duke uses it to vilify his wife in saying that she was too easily pleased. However, rather than detracting from her character, the Duke shows what a cretinhe is.

She would not be "lessoned," so he says; and though she was always courteous with him, he complains that she acted the same with everyone, which he resents. And so he put an end to it—he bullied her into submissiveness...or it could mean he had her killed.

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.

The Duke, at the least, crushed her spirit with his petty jealousy.

Then, in an instant, the Duke changes the subject—getting to the business of marrying again. He has been speaking with the emissary of his future bride's family. He speakes about the arrangements (the dowry). He is not one who knows affection. As they prepare to leave, he points to another piece of art, as if the Duchess was only that. It may also symbolize his undeniable power—and like Neptune—"taming" his wife:

Notice Neptune, though,
Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity,
Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me!

The narrator finds the Duke deficient—he does not want a meaningful relationship. He wants his way. He is selfish. His pride (a theme) and his need for control prohibit a true "emotional bond."

This poem is a compelling character portrayal reflecting the objectification of women in this historical context. In the poem, the speaker spends a great deal of time showing a guest a portrait of his former wife, asking this guest to sit while he explains the lady's demeanor captured in the portrait. Instead of praising her, he condemns his now deceased wife for being too happy. She was equally happy with a gift from him, a sunset, or a branch of cherries. Interestingly, this unparalleled joy is not valued by the speaker; it is clear that he needed to feel that he was special to her—that he made her happier than anyone or anything else. And when she failed to deliver, there is evidence that he had her killed:

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.

The "commands" from the speaker immediately precede the fact that her smiles stopped, and now he's in the position of needing a new wife. It seems that the inability of the wife to meet the egotistical needs of her husband's sense of self-importance led to her death.

So to whom is the duke casually confessing these acts to—and with no sense of remorse? Shockingly, the guest is an emissary of his next bride's father. The duke feels that he has nothing to hide in his previous marriage and likely wants to be clear in this marital arrangement that his needs include being made to feel special and important—and his next bride, whose father awaits them downstairs, needs to deliver.

The Duke is speaking to an emissary who's been sent by a Count, whose daughter the Duke hopes to marry. In time-honored fashion, a proposed aristocratic marriage is being arranged by way of a go-between, whose job it is to deal with both parties in finalizing the details of the forthcoming nuptials.

As a previous Educator has rightly noted, it's only toward the end of the poem that we find out the identity of the Duke's interlocutor. Up until that moment, it was as if the Duke had been speaking aloud. But now that we know that he's been divulging his true feelings about his late wife to someone else, we find his comments all the more disturbing. The Duke has such a strong sense of entitlement and is so certain that his murderous actions were justified that he feels no compunction whatsoever in telling someone that he gave orders to "silence" the late duchess.

When the Duke refers to "The Count your master," this tells us that he is actually speaking to an emissary of a count: a representative that the Count has sent to broker the marriage of his daughter to the Duke, as the Duke also refers to the Count's "fair daughter's self," who he says is his "object."

However, it also seems likely that the Duke is sending a warning to the Count, and even perhaps the count's daughter. He has explained that he "choose[s] / Never to stoop." To him, it would be "stooping" to explain to his wife that she should value him and his very old family name above any and all other gifts she might receive. In his mind, she ought to know this, feel this, already. What frustrated him about his last duchess was her habit of being "Too easily impressed; she like whate'er / She looked on, and her looks went everywhere." She seemed as grateful for the sunset or some fruit as she was for the Duke's love, and he would not lower himself (what he calls stooping) by explaining to her why she should appreciate him the most. Rather than "stoop," he seems to have had her killed. He says, "I gave commands; / Then all smiles stopped together." Now, it appears that he is warning the Count and the Count's daughter, his potential future bride, via the Count's emissary, about how he expects to be treated by his wife and what he will and will not consider acceptable behavior. In other words, she will have to act as though the Duke is the best thing that's ever happened to her once they marry, or he might just get rid of her as he did the last duchess.

Part of the mastery of Browning's art in this poem is that we are only told who the audience of the Duke's dramatic monologue is at the end of the poem, after he has seemingly quite cheerfully narrated how he had his "last Duchess" disposed off because of how, in his perception, she bestowed attention of others. Thus, having established the immense pride and cruelty of the Duke, it is highly ironic that we discover in the last few lines that the silent listener is a representative from a Count whose Duke the daughter is negotiating to marry:

The Count your master's known munificience
Is ample warrant that no just pretense
Of mine for dowry will be disallowed;
Though his fair daughter's self, as I avowed
As starting, is my object.

Now, when we think about this, this is either incredibly ironic or/and it is incredibly chilling. Either we think that the Duke has no awareness of what the story of his last Duchess is doing to the listener, or, he is deliberately sending a message to the Count about the kind of behaviour he expects from a wife and the kind of response he can expect if his daughter does not behave accordingly.

A key – if not THE key – to understanding Robert Browning’s My Last Duchess lies with the word that precedes the text: Ferrara.  Ferrara was a Renaissance-era Italian city within the boundaries of which congregated many important figures of that era.  As the title of the poem, or monologue, is “My Last Duchess,” it stands to reason that the narrator is a duke, and it is widely assumed that the duke in question was a reference to the real-life Duke of Ferrara, who married a 14-year-old girl who died at 17 years of age.  The suggestion widely believed is that the duke is addressing the father of his next presumed wife, and is discussing with this guest his previous wife, the now-deceased girl whose painting is now kept concealed behind a curtain (“The curtain I have drawn for you”) and shown only on special occasions, for example, the meeting dedicated to securing a father’s consent to his daughter’s marriage.  There is, though, precious little in My Last Duchess to definitively identify the precise nature of this monologue – at least until its final lines.  The monologue ends with the speaker’s comments drawing to a close, the visitor preparing to depart.  The clue, however, is presented in the author’s choice of words:

There she standsAs if alive. Will’t please you rise? We’ll meetThe company below, then. I repeat,The Count your master’s known munificenceIs ample warrant that no just pretenseOf mine for dowry will be disallowed;Though his fair daughter’s self, as I avowedAt starting, is my object.

The duke’s reference to a dowry suggests the nature of the meeting.  He is discussing with the father of the woman he hopes to marry next the conditions under which such an arrangement will be concluded.  Dowries, including in Victorian-era England, were monetary or otherwise valuable gifts from the bride’s family to the marriage as a means of helping young couples begin their life together.  This passage in Browning’s monologue clearly indicates that the duke is seeking the approval of his visitor for the latter’s daughter’s hand in marriage.

According to the article on "Historical Context" in the eNotes Study Guide:

The incident the poem dramatizes comes from the life of Alfonso II, a nobleman of Spanish origin who was Duke of Ferrara in Italy during the sixteenth century. Alfonso's first wife was Lucrezia, a member of the Italian Borgia family and the daughter of a man who later became pope. Although she died only three years into the marriage—to be replaced, as the poem suggests, by the daughter of the Count of Tyrol—Lucrezia transformed the court of Ferrara into a gathering place for Renaissance artists, including the famous Venetian painter Titian. (See reference link below.)

"My Last Duchess" is Robert Browning's most often anthologized dramatic monologue. As in all his dramatic monologues, there is a single speaker, and in "My Last Duchess" the speaker is the Duke of Ferrara. One of the features of Browning's dramatic monologues is that the speaker unwittingly reveals a great deal about his own character while addressing some other person or persons. In "My Last Duchess" the Duke is talking to a man who is representing the father of the young girl the Duke intends to make his "next duchess." They have come upstairs to discuss the matter of dowry, and the Duke is showing the visitor a portrait of his former wife, a beautiful young woman whom he apparently had killed because she did not please him.

Towards the end of the poem the visitor apparently jumps out of his chair and starts to leave the room without a word of thanks or goodbye and without having settled the matter of the dowry. It would appear that the visitor is so revolted and horrified by what he has heard that he intends to advise his master not to consider allowing his daughter to marry this greedy sadist. The Duke, who does not realize how much he has revealed about his character in his monologue, hurries after the departing visitor with the following words:

Will't please you rise? We'll meet
The company below, then, I repeat,
The Count your master's known munificence
Is ample warrant that no just pretence
Of mine for dowry will be disallowed
Though his fair daughter's self, as I avowed
At starting, is my object. Nay, we'll go
Together down, sir. Notice Neptune, though,
Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity,
Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me!

Notice how these lines, like all the lines in the poem, form rhyming couplets; but the couplets are intentionally made ragged and ungainly in order to further characterize the Duke as a pretentious lout who has no aesthetic taste although he obviously thinks very highly of himself as a connoisseur. The Duke himself admits he is not especially articulate:

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, and say, "Just this
Or this in you disgusts me; here you miss
Or there exceed the mark"

From the Duke's awkward description of his last duchess, it is hard for the reader to see any fault at all in the lovely young woman. It becomes apparent to his visitor that what his host is trying to say is that he disapproved of her because she was everything he is not. She was an excellent example of humanity, whereas he is an ugly, selfish, greedy, insensitive villain. Hopefully, the visitor is hastening to warn the Count, who is evidently being entertained downstairs along with his wife and other members of his retinue, against sacrificing his daughter to this ignoble nobleman.

Some critics have guessed that the Duke had his last wife incarcerated in a convent. Others think he had her murdered. The latter seems far more likely, since he could hardly be planning to marry the Count's daughter if he still had a living wife. In fact, these lines should prove that the young woman is dead:

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. There she stands
As if alive.

Throughout this dramatic monologue the Duke reveals himself as such a cold-blooded, insensitive monster that his visitor finally jumps out of his chair and starts to run downstairs without saying "Thank you" or "Goodbye" or offering any excuse for his flight.

Will't please you rise? We'll meet
The company below, then.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Nay, we'll go
Together down, sir.

The Duke is so insensitive that he cannot understand the bad impression he has made on this man who has come upstairs with him to discuss the matter of a dowry. In referring to the beautiful young woman in the painting as "My last duchess," the Duke shows that he never really regarded her as a human being but as a piece of property. He is also implying that the Count's beautiful daughter whom he plans to wed will be "his next duchess." He probably feels that wives are replaceable if for any reason they become unsatisfactory, and that a person with his "nine-hundred,years-old name" can get all the wives he wants, as if from an assembly line. He resembles England's King Henry VIII in this respect--or even the murderous Sulltan in The Arabian Nights.

In referring to the painting as his "last duchess," the Duke does not seem to distinguish between the real woman and the painting. He undoubtedly values the painting by Fra Pandolf much more than he ever valued the lovely girl who posed for it. He cannot even realize his bad taste in showing the picture of a dead wife to the man representing the father of his next wife.

Not all of Browning's dramatic monologues were rhymed, but "My Last Duchess" is in rhymed couplets. This fact can be easily overlooked because the rhymes are so ungainly and the lines so ragged and staggered that the reader may not even want to recognize the intentionally grotesque poetry as such. Browning's purpose in using rhyming but unclosed couplets must have been to further emphasize the Duke's mental deformity. The Duke himself acknowledges that he has no skill in expressing himself.

Even had you skill
In speech--(which I have not)--to make your will
Quite clear to such an one, and say, "Just this
Or that in you disgusts me, here you miss,
Or there exceed the mark"--and 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.

(Notice the rhymes: skill/will, this/miss, let/set, excuse/choose)

The Duke has brought this visitor upstairs ostensibly to show him part of his art collection but actually to discuss the dowry he expects with the Count's daughter. The visitor is obviously a gentleman, rather than a mere servant, but he is representing the Count. When he jumps up and starts to run downstairs to where the other visitors are gathered, including presumably the Count himself, the reader hopes the horrified man intends to advise the Count to spare his daughter from the fate of marrying a greedy, heartless Bluebeard.

In spite of the Duke's rather untrustworthy opinion of the Duchess, we can infer a number of physical and other attributes from what he says about her. It is pertinent that she was beautiful and that he wanted to celebrate her allure by having her portrait done by a renowned artist.

When he discusses the painting, he mentions her blushing ('spot of joy') not only because he was there but also because of a remark the painter, Fra Pandolf, made while executing his task. This suggests that she was somewhat shy and probably easily embarrassed by a compliment or by seeing her husband perusing her and the painting being crafted by the artist. The Duke, however, seems offended since he believes she was too easily pleased.

...She had
A heart—how shall I say?—too soon made glad,
Too easily impressed....

The Duke, who narrates the poem, is an unreliable narrator. Thus in trying to determine the character of the Duchess, we have the problem that we cannot trust our only source of information.

The basic facts of which we can be certain are that she was married to the Duke, that she was young and probably beautiful, that she died, and that the Duke is negotiating for a second wife. We can also assume that she was a member of the nobility.

The Duke portrays her as flirtatious and disloyal. He objects to the way she "thanked men" and suggests that rather than favoring him, her husband, she treated him just like any other man rather than loving or respecting him as a husband.

As readers, though, we cannot trust the Duke, who appears insanely jealous and paranoid and may well have had her murdered. She may well have been simply polite and pleasant. Eventually, we cannot determine her real character because we are not given an account by a reliable witness. 

The former, now deceased, wife of the speaker in "My Last Duchess" was, in life, polite, respectful, friendly, and beautiful.  She was, unfortunately for her, not a snob, which is what her husband wants in a wife.

In short, the Duchess in the poem now behaves like the Duke expects a wife to behave:  like a work of art reflecting back on him.  The poem begins and ends with the Duke displaying works of art.  Notice the works of art are important to the Duke not for their inherent beauty, etc., but because of how they reflect on him.  The final piece he points out, for instance, is valuable because it is rare and was created just for him. 

The Duchess was respectful and appeared to be very nice to the Duke, but the Duke, according to his own words, was not the only source of her joy.  She found pleasure in nature and people who would do small favors for her, etc.  The Duke was not her only source of joy--therefore he ordered her to be killed. 

The Duchess is in the present of the poem the ultimate trophy wife for the Duke. 

This is such a complicated but wonderful poem.  The Duke of Ferrara is a very selfish man who considers everything within his grasp "his".  He owns many things...the bronze statue, for instance.  The most important thing he "owns," however, is his last duchess.  She hangs on the wall as if she were still alive--no one sees her unless he approves, otherwise she is hidden behind the curtain for his eyes only.

The Duke is talking the entire time, and he reveals much of his selfish and haughty personality through what he says...and what he does not.  Read between the lines.  He tells the envoy of the New Duchess that he will not tolerate someone who does not live for him entirely.  So warn your man that his daughter better suck up to me or she'll end up on the wall like my last duchess.

The Duchess found pleasure in simple things.  She did not respect his gift of a very old and distinguished name, and she smiled at everyone...not just the Duke.  She appreciated it whend someone brought her flowers or fruit, or showed her any kindness whatsoever.  So, rather than lower himself to tell her that he didn't like this, he gave orders to "stop her smiles" altogether.  We understand that he had her killed.

Some critics read into this that the Duchess was cheating on the Duke, but I think she just enjoyed simple pleasures of life--sunsets and friendly people and juicy peaches, etc. 

The Duke is incredibly proud and totally callous. He hoards the painting of his last wife, and he allows "none [to] put by / The curtain" covering her portrait but himself because he wants to control who can see her happy blush. He admits that it angered him that, during her lifetime, she was "too soon made glad." Any thing, no matter how small or insignificant, would produce "that spot of joy" on her cheeks: a beautiful sunset, a bough of cherries from the orchard, a pretty mule. They were all on par with his "favour at her breast," and he could not stand it. She was grateful to everyone for everything and she thanked people, he says,

[...] as if she ranked
My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name
With anybody's gift.

The Duke could not bear the idea that his duchess did not treasure him and his gifts more than anyone else. It angered him that she was grateful for all, that she didn't count herself incredibly lucky as a result of his love alone. He admits that he might have been able to explain this to her, but this would require "some stooping," he says, "and I choose / Never to stoop." He refused to lower himself to explain that she ought to smile more for him than anyone else, be more grateful for his gifts than anyone else's. It would have been humiliating to have to explain such a thing. Instead, he "gave commands; / Then all smiles stopped together." It seems that he must have given an order to have her killed. This way, he gets what he wants: he can pick and choose who gets to see her blushing smile, keeping her all to himself if he desires it—something he could not do while she was alive. We see, then, how proud he is as well as how unfeeling.

The entire poem is geared toward a “portrait” of the Duke’s inhumanity and greed.  The casual remark  “I gave commands and all smiles stopped together” is a sinister hint as to his power and malice, and his hypocritical remark about the new candidate’s dowry is a good indication of his greed.  The fact that he treats human beings as owned objects is hidden even in his first remark : “That’s my last duchess painted on the wall.”  This "ownership" attitude is reiterated in the last image in the poem “ Notice Neptune.. which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me.”  The reader gets the same impression of the Duke as does the ambassador, who undoubtedly takes back a negative report to his employer.  The “kind of person” the Duke displays unconsciously in his exchanges with the ambassador gives a double meaning to the word “last,” since the Duke is very unlikely to ever get a good recommendation and therefore another Duchess.

The main conflict explored in "My Last Duchess" is between the duke's desire to have his wife's undivided attention and adulation and his wife's natural tendency to spontaneously enjoy and appreciate the people around her.

The duchess is kind, openhearted, young, and a people lover. Rather than remain arrogant and aloof towards those around her, the duchess takes pleasure in them. She smiles, and a "spot of joy" colors her cheek when Fra Pandolf, who is painting her portrait, compliments her. She is delighted to get a bough of cherries from an "officious fool." She delights in a sunset or riding her white mule. As the duke puts it, she is

too soon made glad,
Too easily impressed.

A key technique used in "My Last Duchess" is dramatic monologue. We hear the story of his late duchess in the duke's own words, as he tells it to an emissary who has been sent to arrange a new marriage. This gives us unmediated access to the duke's own thoughts and rationalizations. We don't have an objective narrator telling us what to feel and think about the story the duke relates, so we feel the horror of his killing his innocent young bride all the more acutely.

Dramatic monologue leads to characterization and dramatic irony. The duke is revealing or characterizing himself as an unreasonable, overly proud, controlling person who is so insecure he can't tolerate his wife showing the least attention to someone else. This leads to dramatic irony, which occurs when readers know what characters in a work of literature do not. The duke does not realize that he is presenting himself as a monster incapable of a real relationship with a woman. For example, rather than communicate with his late wife, the duke has her murdered.

Browning also uses imagery to tell the story. The "bough of cherries" that a "fool" gives the duchess sticks in our mind for its simplicity and innocence, a sharp contrast to the duke's angry and jealous reaction to it, and the many art pieces the duke surrounds himself with, such as the bronze sculpture of Neptune taming a seahorse (which also characterizes the duke as controlling), show that he is more interested in and comfortable with static objects than living beings.

In “My Last Duchess,” Robert Browning employs a technique called apostrophe, in which the speaker of the poem addresses someone who does not respond to him verbally in the poem. He appears to be addressing the servant of a “Count,” to whom he refers on line 49, as he is attempting to broker a marriage to the count’s “fair daughter” now that his “last duchess” is dead (lines 52, 1).

Browning also employs dramatic irony to great effect. Dramatic irony is created when the reader knows more than a character, and, in this case, we know more than the speaker—the character of the duke himself. He cannot see himself and his monstrousness clearly, while we can. He sees nothing wrong with the fact that he persecuted his last duchess, that he took umbrage with her failure to be properly grateful for his “gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name,” that he “gave commands” which seem to have led to her death, a possible murder, when “all smiles stopped together” (lines 33, 45, 46). He openly discusses the fact that she was “too soon made glad,” in his opinion, and that he grew to despise her for it (line 22). We see his faults, and he does not.

Further, Browning employs some clever wordplay—a pun, in fact—when the duke explains that the count’s daughter is his “object” (line 53). On the one hand, he certainly means that marrying her is his goal. However, this word choice has another meaning entirely in that the duke has objectified his last duchess and would likely do the same to his next. He has reduced her to an object, something that he can control when he could not control her person. He says of her, “That’s my last duchess painted on the wall, / Look as if she were alive” (lines 1–2). He does not say that it’s a painting of his last duchess but, rather, that it is her. He thinks of her as an object that he can control, as “none puts by / The curtain [he has drawn]” to show the portrait except for himself (lines 9–10). He could not control his wife’s smiles and blushes when she lived, but he can control who gets to see those smiles and blushes now that she only exists as an object: her portrait.

The first twenty-one lines of the poem are quite detailed about the portrait. Firstly, we learn that the painting is of the speaker's last wife and that the portrait is quite vivid: Looking as if she were alive. The duchess is obviously deceased. The speaker (the duke) says that he calls that piece a wonder which suggests that the painting had been skilfully executed and that the artist's mastery resulted in a beautiful and remarkable image of the duke's wife.

We furthermore know that the artist, Fra Pandolf, had taken a day to finish the portrait and that it is a full-length painting - and there she stands. The duke courteously invites his guest to sit down and take a proper look at the picture. He is obviously proud of having been married to such a wondrous woman.

It is clear that the artist had quite vividly captured the blush in the duchess' cheeks. The duke, displaying his vanity, refers to himself in the third person:

... Sir, ‘t was not
Her husband’s presence only, called that spot
Of joy into the Duchess’ cheek

The duke concedes that the remarks made by the artist during the sitting could also have made his lady blush. It becomes clear that the duke was not much pleased by her reaction to such courtesy, for the following lines introduce a quite sinister element:

... such stuff
Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough
For calling up that spot of joy.

As we continue reading, we become alarmed at what the duke has to say and suspect that he, in his arrogance and vanity, may have done away with his wife, suggested by: Then all smiles stopped together. 

Mood is the emotion that a work of literature evokes in readers. While the poem is ironic, the mood it elicits is one of unease. It becomes apparent fairly early on that the duke is not quite mentally balanced, and that feeling grows as he reveals more of himself. His extreme possessiveness towards his late young wife feels "off." Why, we wonder, does he react so jealously to her smiling at her portrait painter, being pleased at receiving the gift of a cherry bough, or being delighted to ride around on her white mule?

Our unease increases when the duke says such things as,

She ranked
My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name
With anybody’s gift.

We can't feel comfortable either as he recalls his inability to talk to her about what "disgusts" him in her, leaving the duchess to innocently continue offending the duke without knowing why. When the duke cryptically says, "I gave commands; / Then all smiles stopped together," the reader's unease reaches a climax as it appears the unbalanced duke had his young wife killed.

This lends a sinister cast to the duke's talk about his art collection at the poem's end, including the portrait he had painted of his late wife. The duke seems far more comfortable with static art objects than with human beings, who are much harder to control. This character study of a possibly sociopathic man leaves us feeling glad we are not in his grip—and hoping that the emissary tells his employer not to marry his daughter to this man.

The narrator can be described as darkly ironic, bitter, possibly paranoid, and perhaps slightly evil. The entire monologue is a discourse about his late wife who since her death has been reduced to nothing more than another one of his beautiful objects of art. He casually reveals to his visitor that he thought she could be swayed emotionally by minor things such as meaningless compliments or trivial pursuits.

He indicates that she had a wandering eye, and he implies that she was perhaps unfaithful to him. He does not seem to be bothered by her unfaithfulness to  as much as he is bitter about the perceived disrespect her behavior cast upon the venerable name he conferred upon her with their marriage. There is evilness in the inference that he had this duchess killed when he states, "I gave commands;
Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands
As if alive," and there is even more to be concerned about when he immediately proceeds  to talk about the young lady downstairs--possibly his next poor duchess.

The speaker in "My Last Duchess" is a duke. He claims, in the first line, that the woman in the painting he shows to his guest is "my last Duchess," and she could only be a duchess if she were married to a duke. Historically, titles such as "duke" could only pass from male heir to male heir, and so this first-person narrator (he uses the first-person singular pronoun "I" frequently) would have to be a duke in order to be married to a duchess.

The inspiration for the poem is widely believed to be a real historical figure named Alfonso II, the Duke of Ferrara, who lived in Italy during the Renaissance. His wife, Lucrezia, died when she was very young, and there were, evidently, some suspicious circumstances surrounding her death. She was only sixteen years old when she passed away. There were rumors that Alfonso might have poisoned her, likely started by his political enemies. After her death, the duke married a female relative of the Count of Tyrol, just as the duke in the poem is, himself, attempting to broker a marriage to the daughter of a count. The subtitle of the poem, "FERRARA," is the most significant clue to the poem's inspiration, but, obviously, there are many similarities between the real-life story and the poem's events.

The fictional duke and speaker of the poem implicates himself as the murderer of his late wife—his "last Duchess"—as he shows her portrait to a visiting emissary of the count whose daughter he wishes to marry. In his arrogance and lasting disdain for his late wife, he lists his complaints of her—chiefly that he pleased her no more than anything or anyone else—and tells the emissary that he eventually "gave commands; / Then all [her] smiles stopped together." The duke seems secure in his position of power that his obvious pride and jealousies will not mar his chances of finding another duchess, this time one who sings only of his praises.

Robert Browning’s dramatic monologue “My Last Duchess” is his best-known and most frequently anthologized poem. What makes it so emotionally effective is the strong contrast between the speaker and the subject of his monologue. The speaker is a thoroughly loathsome man, while his last duchess was obviously not only a beautiful but a loving and lovable young woman. The woman and the man are like Beauty and the Beast.

The arrogant Duke, who had the exceedingly bad taste to show a portrait of his dead wife to the representative of the man whose daughter he was planning to marry, reveals his character in everything he says--but Browning has added a peculiar touch which serves to characterize the Duke even more effectively than the contents of his monologue.  That is to be found in the open couplets which are so deliberately ragged, staggered, awkward, discordant and forced that they serve as proof of the Duke’s own admission that he has no skill in speech and highlight his ignorance, insensitivity and vulgarity. Here are a few examples:

That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall,
Looking as if she were alive. I call
And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst,
How such a glance came there; so, not the first
The bough of cherries some officious fool
Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule
Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse,
--E’en then would be some stooping, and I choose
As if alive. Will’t please you rise? We’ll meet
The company below, then. I repeat,
Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity,
Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me!

It the entire poem is read with particular attention to the open couplets, the calculated awkwardness of the meter and the rhymes becomes strikingly obvious.

The Duke’s monologue fails to explain exactly what it was he found wrong with his lovely young wife. But the evidence he gives against himself seems to lead to the conclusion that he wanted to get rid of her because she could not be like him—which would have been the last thing she could have done and the last thing that would ever have occurred to her.

This reveals an aspect of human nature relating to people who are just basely not good. Shakespeare in King Lear has the Duke of Albany make the exceedingly astute observation that “Wisdom and goodness to the vile seem vile: Filths savour but themselves.” That is the case with Browning’s proud, greedy, sadistic, insensitive, and ignorant Duke: because he had no capacity for goodness himself, he couldn't tolerate his duchess' sweet nature.

The Duke's none too kind about the last duchess, whose portrait he shows to the Court emissary. But then, he did have her killed, so that's hardly surprising. By way of justification for his deadly deed, the Duke proceeds to give the emissary certain details of the late duchess' personality which place her in an unflattering light.

For one thing, she was too easily pleased. Almost everything she laid eyes on—whether a bowl of cherries given to her by a courtier, a sunset, or a white mule she used to ride around the terrace—caused her to speak words of approval, even blush sometimes.

A further problem with the duchess, according to her widower, is that she thanked everyone for whatever they gave her with the same degree of enthusiasm. The Duke was sorely offended by this alleged slight, as it put the 900-year-old name he'd given the duchess by marrying her on the same level as the very humblest of gifts. And for the Duke, that was nothing short of insulting.

Yes, the duchess always used to smile at the Duke whenever he passed her, but then, she used to smile at everyone else too. Once again, the Duke was being treated the exact same way as those he considers his social inferiors. More than anything else, it was this alleged outrage to his sense of propriety that convinced the Duke to have the duchess killed.

There are three relationships presented in "My Last Duchess." One is the implied relationship between men of the aristocracy. The Duke speaks to an emissary of a nobleman whose daughter he intends to marry. From the Duke's monologue, the reader gets the impression that at least this one negotiation of a marriage has more to do with money and marital conditions than it does with love. 

The second relationship is the future relationship between the Duke and his wife-to-be. It would seem to be much like the one the Duke had with his former wife, a relationship in which she must be submissive to the Duke. 

The main relationship described in this poem is between the Duke and his late wife. He describes her as an outgoing woman but his jealousy paints a picture of her as inappropriately flirtatious or perhaps even as an unfaithful wife.

                                             She had
A heart - how shall I say? -too soon made glad,
Too easily impressed; she liked whate'er 
She looked on, and her looks went everywhere. (21-24)

The Duke's jealous assessment of his late wife and his description of her as an object reveal that he thinks of her as a possession. There is even the possibility that when she did not submit to his commands, he had something to do with her death. 

Whene'er I passed her; but who passed without 
Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands;
Then all smiles stopped together. (44-46)

Finally, once again discussing the portrait of his late wife, an art object, he turns the attention of the emissary to a sculpture of Neptune taming a sea horse. The juxtaposition of this piece and his wife's portrait speak to his way of thinking that women are like objects or at best, as people, something to be tamed. 

It seems that the duke who is the speaker of the poem had his "last Duchess" killed so that he would be free to marry again. He is, evidently, speaking to a representative who works for some count, attempting to broker a new marriage to the count's daughter and discussing the potential dowry which would accompany her hand. The duke explains that his last duchess had a heart "too soon made glad," that she was "too easily impressed" and seemed to rank all the gifts she received equally, rather than appreciating the gifts he gave her above all others. Most especially, she failed to appreciate his "gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name" over anyone else's less important gifts, including a white mule, a beautiful sunset, a bough of cherries someone brought to her from the garden, and so on.

The duke refused to explain himself to the duchess, considering it beneath him to have to tell her that he wanted her to value him more highly than anyone or anything else; he refers to having to explain such a thing as "stooping." And so he says that he "gave commands; / Then all smiles stopped together." We then are made to understand that she is no longer alive. Thus, it sounds as though the "commands" he gave were to have her killed so that he could start afresh with a new duchess, someone who would understand how to be the kind of wife he wants, someone who would flatter his ego.

When reading this poem, you don’t have to delve too far to find examples of what the duchess did to drive the duke wild.

First of all, take a look at lines 13–15. In this section of the poem, the duke talks about his wife’s “spot of joy,” which is another way of saying that her cheeks were blushed. Notice how the duke says that he is not the only person capable of making his wife blush, meaning that if anybody paid his wife a compliment, her cheeks would flush and become pink. For the duke, this is a problem because it suggests that she enjoys the attention of other men.

In lines 22–23, it seems that the duke is driven wild by his wife’s warm and amiable nature. He says, for instance, that her heart is “too soon made glad” and “was too easily impressed.” In other words, it takes very little to make his wife smile and blush. Anything from a gift to the sight of her horse could make her happy.

Moreover, what really seems to bother his duke about his wife’s gentle nature is that she values all gifts equally. Her marriage to the duke and his 900-year pedigree clearly does not get the special status from her that he believes it should have received.

As the poem progresses, we see that his dislike of her temperament grows as her smiles to others continues. In the end, he gave “commands” for her to stop, which she did, but her death suggests that this stoppage was only temporary.

The Duke is used to being catered to and almost worshipped  for who he is and for his very old and respected family name. He speaks to the Count's representative in an authoratative, almost condescending tone, and hints that he will not tolerate anyone who does not treat him with the respect he feels he deserves. He speaks of the look on his last duchess' face:

Sir, 'twas not
Her husband's presence only, called that spot Of joy into the Duchess' cheek; ...She had
A heart—how shall I say?—too soon made glad, Too easily impressed: she liked whate'er She looked on, and her looks went everywhere.

This quote indicates that he perhaps thought she was cheating on him, or that she found joy in many things--simple things in life--which didn't deserve the same joyful look she gave him.  He demands to be treated in a special way.

Somehow—I know not how—as if she ranked
My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name
With anybody's gift. 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, and say, "Just this Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss, Or there exceed the mark"—and 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.

He can not understand how she treated everyone as she treated him...her husband with an old and respected family name.  How could she be so dense?  He says, "Of course, I could have taught her; told her how she offended me, but that would be stooping beneath my stature."  The Duke expects others to know how he expects to be treated, and he doesn't care enough about them to correct mistakes or direct them so that they could behave more to his liking.  He just..."stops smiles altogether." 

Notice Neptune, though,
Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity,
Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me!

The last lines in the poem follow his intent to marry the Count's fair daughter.  All of this poem and the discussion of his last duchess' mistakes are fair warning for the next duchess--she had better act accordingly or her smiles will be stopped altogether, also.  The Duke is an unforgiving, intolerant, and belligerent man.  He bullies others into doing his bidding.  He treats people as objects to own and admire (this is why he mentions the rare statue of Neptune cast in bronze just for him by Claus of Innsbruck)--remember that his last duchess is behind the curtain, standing "as if alive" (he had her murdered?), only for his eyes to see. He shows it to the Count's representative to open the conversation about the next duchess and his expectations for her. 

If you were the Count's representative, would you recommend allowing the girl to become the Duke's next Duchess?  Why or why not?

The duke is a terrible narcissist, who excessively admires himself and cares little or not at all for the feelings or lives of others. Of the duchess, he reveals that

'twas not
Her husband's presence only, called that spot
Of joy into the Duchess' cheek [...].

Just about everything, it seems, brought the duchess joy: his love, the sunset, fresh fruit, a pretty mule, and so forth. The duke feels that she was "too soon made glad, / Too easily impressed." She failed to rank his gift, the gift of being his wife and taking his name, above all other gifts, and her failure to recognize the superiority of this gift to everyone and everything else irritated and angered him. He says that it's true that he could have spoken to her about her error and made her see it his way, but, he says,

E'en then would be some stooping; and I choose
Never to stoop.

He feels it would be beneath him to have to explain why she ought to be more appreciative of his gifts than anyone else's, why she ought to be more affected by his presence than anyone else's. The duke will not "stoop" to explain this to her. Instead, he determined, simply, to get rid of her and start afresh with a new duchess. He says,

I gave commands;
Then all smiles stopped together.

Almost worse than the fact that he, apparently, had her murdered is the fact that he seems to feel that he was well within his rights to do so, that it was justified by her behavior. Because of his position and power, he can simply "g[i]ve commands," and his status seems to justify his behavior, at least to himself. Now, she is merely another one of his possessions, her portrait hung behind a curtain that "none puts by" but he, equivalent in his mind to his sculpture of "Neptune [...] / Taming a sea-horse" by another famous artist.

The duke only recognizes his own desires, and he never considers the duchess's. Rather than be grateful for her joyful spirit, he condemns her for being so easily pleased because he wants to be the thing that pleases her the most. Because she does not acknowledge his superiority in all things, he gets rid of her so that he can find someone else who will.

This poem is a dramatic monologue, in which one person (a duke) does all the talking, in this case to one listener, a visiting ambassador from another principality, in which a Count has a daughter who is being considered as a marriage partner to the Duke.  There are, however, three characters concerning the reader here (and two minor artist characters.)  The third character is the Duke’s now deceased previous partner (the title character, My Last Duchess).  The relationship the Duke and the Last Duchess was abrasive as the duke treated her like a possession; the marriage my have ended in her murder ("I gave commands, and all smiles stopped together").  She is present in the form of a portrait and in the Duke’s description of her (She is... too soon made glad”, etc.)  The Duke’s psychological character is made clear by Browning’s selecting of the Duke’s words, which clearly indicate an avaricious, power-hungry, vain and insensitive human being who treats people like possessions.  The ambassador’s silence is the only clue we have that he is not taken in by the Duke’s performance, and will report back to the Count that this is not a good marriage.  Two artists are also mentioned: Fra Pandolph, the painter of the Duccess’ portrait, and Claus of Innsbruck, a sculptor, whose statue of Neptune caps the monologue.  The ambassador is of course respectful of the Duke’s title, and acts in a  diplomatic way.

In this excellent and rather chilling poem, we are presented with one side of a conversation where the speaker shows his audience a portrait of his last Duchess, and casually infers as if in passing how he disposed of her because of the interest she provoked in other men. As the poem ends we discover that the person he is talking to is actually an emmisary from a Count whose daughter the speaker is hoping to marry.

It is very important then, as your question indicates, to consider the attitudes expressed by the speaker in the poem. Note how he is presented as an incredibly proud man who obviously expects perfection in his belongings, including his wife:

...and 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.

Notice the defiance and arrogance in his declaration that he chooses "never to stoop." It is also interesting as well to consider how the poem ends. Having passed the portrait of his last Duchess, the speaker draws his audience's attention to another object in his possession:

Notice Neptune, though,
Taming a seahorse, thought a rarity,
Which Claud of Innsburck cast in bronze for me!

The fact that Neptune is taming a seahorse clearly is significant and expresses his desire for complete mastery and his determination to "break in" his wives. The Duke is clearly trying to impress his guest but also show his expectation of perfection in all of his possessions--wives included.

Theme in literary terms, refers to a recurrent idea or topic in writing. It is often also the main subject of such writing. In most instances, though, a literary work explores various themes, as does Browning's poem.

The most obvious theme in this monologue is possession. It becomes apparent from the outset that the Duke derives much pleasure from his belongings. He speaks about "my" last Duchess, as if she were an object. He takes pride in talking about the painting he had commissioned. It gives him great joy that the artist, Fra Pandolf, could so accurately depict his previous wife's image on canvas. On a sinister note, though, he comments about the fact that his wife was apparently affected by the artist's complimentary remarks during the sitting.

Such stuff
Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough
For calling up that spot of joy.

"My Last Duchess" by Robert Browning uses the form of the dramatic monologue to illustrate major themes typical of Browning's work.

The first major theme is that of the collector, a theme also found in "The Bishop Orders his Tomb." This theme illustrates a way people react to art by collecting it as a status symbol rather than appreciating its intrinsic worth. The Duke who narrates "My Last Duchess" is a collector in his attitude towards people (especially women) as well as objects. We see the relationship between them in the discussion of the portrait of the Duchess. The Duke says:

I gave commands;
Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands
As if alive.

The duchess has been transformed into an object similar to the statue of Neptune.

Another major theme is hypocrisy and the way in which a convention surface can mask evil.

The duke wants to justify killing the young duchess, but he instead manages to show her as a sweet and loving person whom we might enjoy meeting if she were still alive.

Behaviors the duke criticizes include the following: first, the duchess used to blush with pleasure when people other than her husband complimented her. Second, the duke criticizes her for having been too easily "made glad." He is very irritated that she appreciated a sunset, or a bough of cherries someone gave her, or riding around on her mule, as much as spending time with him. The duke is especially upset that she seemed to discount the importance of his "nine-hundred-years-old name" as if it were just another gift equal to a sunset.

The duke feels justified in killing the duchess because she wouldn't pour all her admiration and attention out onto him alone. He is also angered that she is not sufficiently impressed with him and his rank. We as readers see, however, a sweet young bride, easily made happy by little things, likable and innocent.

Robert Browning creates a complex character in his poem "My Last Duchess" by using a technique called "the dramatic monologue." In this, the character (in this case, the Duke) is allowed to speak for himself, allowing the audience to overhear the character's thoughts. Thus rather than simply describe the character from the outside, which can be one dimension, Browning allows layers of characters to emerge in the process of self-revelation.

The Duke, in giving the envoy a tour of his castle initially appears gracious and sophisticated, but gradually reveals that he is callous and possessive. The personality layers, in which we see his collecting of art objects to color his attitude towards his wife, whom he regarded as one more of his possessions are revealed first in the beginning, when he describes his deceased wife in terms that show no mourning for her death but merely aesthetic appreciation:

That's my last Duchess painted on the wall,    
Looking as if she were alive. I call    
That piece a wonder, now:

It comes to a climax when we discover the cause of her death.

Robert Browning wrote “My Last Duchess” inspired by a real event in Italian history.  A Duke in the sixteenth century married a young girl at the age of fourteen.  The young wife died at the age of seventeen under very suspicious circumstances.  Her husband immediately courted and married another lady.

Narration

The point of view is first person with the main character serving as the narrator.  The entire poem is a dramatic monologue with the Duke who is an arrogant, overtly murderous personality which makes him an unreliable narrator.

Form

The poem is written in iambic pentameter and rhyming couplets. The lines are paired in rhymed couplets.  Browning himself labeled the poem “a dramatic lyric.”

Setting

Unlike many lyric poems, the setting is in sixteenth century Italy.  The immediate setting is a private art gallery of the Duke of Ferrara who lives in a lavish palace with fabulous art objects.

Tone

Browning creates an atmosphere of a sinister mystery.  As the poem moves toward the end, the mood becomes more evil and malevolent. 

Summary

The Duke tells the visiting Count’s representative that the picture that he is showing him is available only to a select few. The portrait is kept covered.  The picture is of the Duke’s last wife.  This is clearly his private gallery, and as always, the Duke is in complete control.

That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall,
Looking as if she were alive, I call
That piece a wonder, now…

The Duke is a rich, powerful aristocratic bully.   His power has corrupted him so much that if something does not go his way, he eradicates it. In order to tell his story, the Duke asks the man to sit down and look at the picture of a lady  who is standing. The artist was well-known for his skill.  The Duke goes into a tirade about all the “supposed” wrongs that his poor wife committed against him.

Apparently, the Duke obsesses about the look on the lady’s face.  He describes her cheek as having a "spot of joy" on it which is probably a slight blush of pleasure. What aggravates the Duke is that the blush should only have been for him.

What has she done wrong?

1. Other men gave his wife compliments or do sweet things for her.
2. The Duchess made a decision to blush at the artist.    
3. She is too easily made happy or too easily impressed.
4. She likes everything that she looks at, and she looks at everything.
5. She thanked the Duke just the same as if she were looking at a sunset or her white mule. 
6. She may be a little flirtatious.
7. She thanked other people the same way that she thanked her  husband for his gift of a prestigious, powerful name.

If the Duke tried to talk to her about these problems, he would have been stooping to her level and he stoops for no one.

The Duchess did smile at him, but she smiled at everyone.  Further she was kind to everyone.  Finally, the Duke ordered the smiling to stop, and it did. The lady is not his Duchess anymore. 

He asks the listener to stand and accompany him downstairs to meet the other guests.  Then the reader learns who the man is and his purpose for being with the Duke.  The Duke is courting the Count’s beautiful daughter to marry her With the Count’s wealth the Duke expects a good dowry.

The poem does not answer all of the questions that come to mind for the reader.  Murder, jealousy, insanity, obsession—these are the topics that Browning introduced to his pompous readers.

Robert Browning's "My Last Duchess" is spoken from the perspective of a widowed duke to a servant of the Count whose daughter he now wishes to marry. For this reason, the last word of the three-word title is the easiest to address: his new wife, perhaps the Count's daughter, will become a duchess by marrying him. This sounds pretty positive!

The word "Last," however, sounds a great deal less positive. To say his "last" duchess indicates that there used to be another duchess, a previous duchess, and so one inevitably wonders what happened to that duchess. Where did she go? Did she die? If so, how? Such an adjective should raise some questions on the part of the reader, and it is appropriate that it does because the question of what happened to the duke's last duchess is only obliquely addressed by the poem. When he grew frustrated with the way she smiled for everyone and didn't favor him and him alone, he says that he "gave commands; / Then all smiles stopped together" (lines 43-44). It sounds very much like he had her murdered because she didn't make him feel special enough.

Finally, the first word of the title -- "My" -- is perhaps the most alarming and telling. The duke seems to look upon the painting of his last duchess as though she were an object for him to possess, and when he could not possess her entirely while alive, he had her killed so that he could own what was left of her: this painting. The fact that only he is allowed to open the curtain that typically hides her portrait emphasizes how much he desires to own her smile, to possess her solely and share her smiles with no one else (unless he chooses to do so, as he has done in this case). He even refers to the Count's daughter as his "object," a fitting choice of words since that seems to be the way he views his last wife: as an object who should not have had a will of her own because it prevented his total ownership and control of her. This will to possess is further symbolized by how much he admires his statue of Neptune taming a seahorse in the last few lines; he, too, sought to tame something beautiful and free, and when he found that he could not, he disposed of her -- as one would a displeasing object one owns -- so that he could acquire another.

Robert Browning's "My Last Duchess" is a dramatic monologue in which the speaker takes a conversational tone as he begins to describe a painting of his "last Duchess" and the situation surrounding the painting, a situation that led to tragedy.

The speaker matter-of-factly discusses how Fra Pandolf worked many days to paint the portrait. His tone darkens and turns rather ominous as he warns that no one uncovers that portrait but himself. Then he explains how his Duchess was "too easily impressed" and how she turned her attention to everything and everyone. All things pleased her, when she should have been focusing on her husband alone, the speaker remarks, his tone turning caustic. She dared to rank "[his] gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name / With anybody's gift," he sneers, his pride clearly evident.

His tone hardens further as he tells how he made a command and her "smiles stopped together." She did not allow herself to be taught, the speaker notes, and he chooses "never to stoop." Again, his pride is all too evident, as are his jealousy and malice. "There she stands," he continues, "As if alive."

The speaker's tone then shifts abruptly, back to a calm courtesy. He asks his companion to rise and go back downstairs. They have business to deal with. The speaker's companion is the servant of a Count, and the speaker is making a deal to marry the Count's daughter. He has an object squarely in mind, namely, the young woman, although her dowry is certainly a matter for consideration as well. An undertone of warning sneaks into the speaker's voice here, suggesting that he will get exactly what he wants, or else. But then the speaker begins to point out another fine piece of art in his collection as if he had never said anything remotely frightening or threatening about his last Duchess or his potential new Duchess.

The Duke who narrates Browning`s `My Last Duchess`is portrayed in the poem as giving a tour of his art collection. The Duchess is introduced as the subject of a painting, and thus as an objct collected by the Duke rather than an independent and living person. As the Duke begins to describe the Duchess, the reader is given a sense of the importance to him of possession. He resents any attention the Duchess paid to anything other than himself because it undermines his ownership of her. Just as he treats the art objects of his collection as something private, only to be displayed to others according to his own choices rather than freely as in a museum (not the portrait is behind a curtain). The discussion concerning the new potential wife is introduced as the narrator moves from discussing the portrait of the last Duchess to pointing out the statue of Neptune, suggesting that the Duke views women as ornamental objects to be collected rather than as independent agents.

The first twenty one lines of the poem help us to understand the duke's possessiveness of his former wife: her portrait is kept behind a curtain that none are allowed to draw aside except him.  We can also learn that his pride was, perhaps, wounded by the fact that it was not only "Her husband's presence" that prompted her to blush; she, apparently, was pleased by anything else as much as she was by his attention to her.  

The duke also seems to place a lot of importance on appearances, as he name drops "Fra Pandolph," a famous painter who is renowned for producing excellent likenesses of individuals.  The duke seems to want his auditor to know that he paid dearly for this painting and demanded only the best.  In fact, he mentions the painter's name even before he begins to describe the woman who used to be his wife.  He prioritizes the value of the painting over the value of its subject.

Browning's "My Last Duchess" is a dramatic monologue in which the single speaker talks to a representative of his fiance's father. 

Ostensibly, the conversation is preparation for negotiations concerning the amount of the fiance's dowry, but, at least in the Duke's mind, his name is of such great worth that money will be no object for the father, and the Duke will get whatever he asks for.  Thus, the negotiations are really about the expected behavior of the fiance once she becomes the Duke's wife.

This is why the portrait of the Duke's last Duchess, his now deceased wife, is featured.  The monologue is an implied threat that if the fiance doesn't behave as the Duke insists, she'll end up just like his first wife--executed. 

The Duke's first wife, as a portrait, now behaves perfectly, according to the warped Duke.  She is passive and just hangs around (literally and figuratively), reflecting back on to the Duke.  This is what the Duke wants for a wife.  He wants the ultimate trophy wife--a beautiful woman to give him and only him all of his respect and attention.   He wants his wife to be a snob just like him. 

His former wife was courteous and pleasant to other people (as well as the Duke), and found pleasure in little things, like nature.  This was insulting to the Duke. 

The poem is framed in works of arts:  the portrait in the beginning and the sculpture of Neptune at the end.  Thus, the theme of art and reality is revealed.  Pride, the Duke's, is also treated.

With any work of literature there is a multiplicity of possible themes that can be drawn out. However, examining this poem, the main message or theme that appears to me is that of pride. As the narrator of the poem is the Duke himself who, we discover, was so jealous of his former wife and the attention that he perceived she gave to others, that he "gave commands" (indicating that he had her put to death), we see everything through his eyes, and we must piece together his character. So sure of his own situation and position that he happily narrates this tale of his "last Duchess" to the very emissary who is organising his next marriage, almost as if it is a warning of the kind of behaviour he expects and demands from a wife. When we think of this, we begin to see this narrative in a different way. Really, the Duke is using this story to outline the conditions of his future marriage and the kind of submission that he feels he deserves from his next wife. Note what he says of his last wife:

--and 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.

Note what these lines reveal about the Duke. He is obviously a proud man who considers it beneath his position and dignity to discuss with the Duchess his concerns about her reactions to other men. He clearly believes that his wants should be anticipated without the need for him to "stoop" to ask for anything. Obviously this presents the theme of pride, as we are struck by the arrogance of the Duke and the way he both reacted to his "last Duchess" and his demands of total compliance of his next wife.

Mood is a particular response that a writer evokes in the reader through various stylistic techniques. Through the author's artistic choices, a reader can thus feel joyful, solemn, shocked, or any host of other emotions while reading.

This poem begins innocently enough, but details soon emerge that seem a bit suspect. The Duke of Ferrara, who is the speaker, points to a portrait of his former wife hanging on a wall. While some men might be annoyed by a grumbling wife, the Duke complains about his wife's joyful personality:

She had
A heart—how shall I say?— too soon made glad,
Too easily impressed; she liked whate’er
She looked on, and her looks went everywhere.

Having a cheerful and easy-to-please personality isn't generally considered a personality flaw by most husbands, so this gives the reader a reason to carefully consider the characterization of the Duke. He continues his complaints:

She thanked men—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 Duke reveals that he believes his wife should have shown him greater appreciation for bestowing an old and respected name upon her; the Duchess found just as much joy in her new name and status as she did in watching a sunset or in examining the bough of a cherry tree. This was an insult to the Duke, who believes that his own "favour" should have been his wife's greatest concern and joy. This characterizes him as quite egotistical.

The Duke then reveals a shocking truth:

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.

The Duke became enraged that his wife smiled "much the same" at him as she did for anyone else she passed. He took action, giving "commands," whereupon her smiles stopped completely.

The Duke evidently issued a command for his wife's murder. It is clear that she is dead, as he uses this poem to discuss a second marriage. The title of the poem also hints at this death; it is about his last Duchess. It is also worth noting that the Duke points out that this painting makes it look "as if [she were] alive."

The Duke's unemotional narration describing his role in the murder of his wife because of her joyful personality creates a mood of horror. The poem ends with the Duke insisting that the listener to whom this poem is addressed join him as they go to meet with the Count so that he can establish the "dowry" for his remarriage to the Count's daughter. This leaves the reader wondering what is in store for the next unfortunate woman who finds herself married to this Duke.

In "My Last Duchess," by Robert Browning, I think it is safe to say that the Duke is amoral with regard to his own behavior. He crassly draws aside the curtain revealing for his visitor his "last duchess" and then continues to explain to his guest her suspected infidelity. The very things that probably attracted him to her--her rosy complexion, her smile, and etc. are replicated by the artist, but the Duke suspects some untoward behavior on the duchess’s part. He is acquisitive by nature as we learn both from his marriage to the beautiful duchess and the bronze statue of Neptune. The fact that he can casually dismiss the last duchess "then the smiles stopped" indicates that he has no compunction about divesting himself of those assets he no longer considers valuable before moving on to his next acquisition this case his "next Duchess" who happens to be waiting downstairs.

the following e-note link might be useful

http://www.enotes.com/jax/index.php/enotes/gsearch?m=co&q=the+last+duchess

Within the 56 lines of his dramatic monologue, Browning exposes not only Duke Ferrara but also the age in which he lived. That age was a time when a large number of landed aristocrats ruled over their own small city-states in Renaissance Italy. The control these men asserted over their society is captured in the poem as Duke Ferrara displays the "power, art, sophistication, [and] pitiless tyranny" (Allingham) typical of the time. 

Ferrara shows his power, and therefore the power that such aristocrats wielded in his age, by referencing his hiring of the artists Fra Pandolf and Claus of Innsbruck to do his bidding. He also runs an estate which employs people, such as the "officious fool" who broke off a cherry bough for the Duchess, raising the Duke's ire. Keeping the Duchess' painting behind a curtain and only drawing it back personally is a metaphor for the power Ferrara exercises over the minutest details, and he also demonstrates his controlling nature by the way he treats the Count's envoy, saying, "Nay--we'll go together down, sir" when the envoy tries to leave before he receives permission. Here Ferrara pulls rank on the ambassador but also on the Count, who was of a lower level of aristocracy than a duke. Obviously the greatest example of the Duke's power is that he has been able to do away with his "last Duchess" without suffering any consequences.

The art that played such an important role in Renaissance culture is amply represented in the poem by the extended reference to Fra Pandolf's act of painting the portrait and by the Duke's deliberate pointing out of the sculpture he commissioned. The bronze statue of "Neptune taming a seahorse" is symbolic of the Duke's ability to dominate not only the artist, but also his wife and anyone else because of his own status that is god-like in his society.

Ferrara shows the sophistication of his age by giving the tour of his personal gallery and also by his elevated diction. Although he ironically claims to not have "skill in speech," his discussion of the dowry with the envoy uses pretentious language: "The Count your master's known munificence is ample warrant that no just pretense of mine for dowry will be disallowed." 

Finally, the "pitiless tyranny" that aristocrats were able to exercise, and historically did exercise in the 16th century, is made clear by the Duke's assertion that "I gave commands; then all smiles stopped together." 

Browning brilliantly captures not only the mindset of an individual man in "My Last Duchess," but also that of the Renaissance age in which the poem is set.

Because the Duke is the first person narrator of the poem, he doesn't openly confess that he is by nature irrationally jealous. Instead, we must infer that from his attitude and obiter dicta.

First, from the way he gives the envoy a tour of his art collection, we get the impression that he is possessive and takes pride in owning things. His character is sometimes described as a "collector" for whom a wife is as much a possession as a painting or statue. The fact that the Duke normally keeps the painting hidden may also be a sign of jealousy.

The most direct statement we get of jealousy occurs in the lines:

Somehow — I know not how — as if she ranked
My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name
With anybody’s gift.

These lines suggest that he is upset that she seems to be polite to anyone other than himself. The Duke also objects to the Duchess smiling at other people. He even finds it objectionable that she is pleased when a painter compliments her on a pose, even though a painter flattering a wealthy woman sitting for a portrait is more likely to be due to his fishing for additional highly paid work than a sign of adultery.

One of the themes of the story is man's inhumanity to woman. And this theme is reflected in the attitude of the upper-classes towards marriage. High-born personages like the Duke don't regard marriage as having anything to do with love; it's all about forging strategic political alliances with other powerful families. As the established convention regards marriage as nothing more than a glorified business transaction, women such as the unfortunate Duchess are treated as chattels, property to be bought and sold by men.

Among other things, this means that, beneath the outward show of exaggerated courtesy shown towards women in this society, they are not truly respected. That being the case, it's no surprise that the Duke should feel no compunction whatsoever in resorting to murdering his wife when he suspects her of infidelity. Browning appears to be making a wider point here about the barbarism of human nature lurking not far beneath the surface, even in the ostensibly refined, civilized surface of Italian aristocratic life.

One theme illuminated by the characters in "My Last Duchess" is the misuse of patriarchal power.

The Duke has wealth and position, and as a husband, a great deal of power over his young wife, the now dead duchess. He abuses his power by wanting her to direct one hundred percent of her affection and attention to him alone, and finally for killing her when she does not comply with his demands.

The late duchess's character illuminates her innocence and kindness:

she liked whate’er
She looked on, and her looks went everywhere.
Sir, ’twas all one! My favour at her breast,
The dropping of the daylight in the West ...

The duke's character illustrates his ruthless abuse of power:

I gave commands;
Then all smiles stopped together.

The duke's character also reveals the theme of insecurity. The duke becomes jealous of the very minor attentions that the duchess pays to other men. One has to wonder why he is so worried about her blushing at the words of a painter or smiling at a servant. The poem implies that people, especially people with power, need to discern what they can safely overlook and to examine their own hearts and minds instead of blaming others for their demons.

While out walking, Browning made the comment to Hiram Corson, after the latter had published an introductory study of Browning's poetry, stating that what he had in mind when he wrote "gave orders" in "My Last Duchess" was the orders were for her murder [as an afterthought he also added an alternative for her to be "shut up in a convent"]. The Duke illustrates that one of Browning's themes in writing this dramatic monologue is that of Insolence. It is the tyrannical Duke's insolence that allows him to think that a viable solution to personal dissatisfaction with the whims of a young bride is murder. Insolence can be understood as haughty, arrogant, disdainful, contemptuous disrespect of personhood. Murder is the ultimate manifestation of disrespect of personhood.

Browning drew the inspiration for his poem from the Renaissance account of the Italian Duke Alfonso II d'Este of the Duchy of Ferrara, attested to by the one word epigram at the head of the poem: "Ferrara." In 1558 the 25-year-old Alfonso married the 14-year-old Lucrezia, the poorly educated young daughter the Midici family, then nouveau riche in comparison to the d'Estes of Ferrara. A poorly educated, fourteen year old bride unused to ancient tradition and manners of behavior would--upon suddenly finding herself the object of attention, esteem, wealth, and authority--be very likely to display giddy, light-hearted and universally delighted deportment.

Since the Ferrara marriage tale inspired Browning's poem--including the similar mysterious deaths of Lucrezia and the first duchess--it is logical to conclude that this is the true description of the Duke's bride whose blush of delight was awakened by trivialities as readily as by his passions. Through the character of the painted last Duchess, Browning presents the theme of Young Marriage, a practice popular in early epochs but fallen out of practice before the Victorian period, yet still envisioned in the wishful romanticality of the morally strict era.

As readers, we begin this “tour” of the Duke’s house as respected guests, viewing his art collection as a way of getting to know the Duke, in order to report back to the Count regarding whether the duke is a fit match for the daughter.  Browning gradually then starts to show us his true character – controlling, demanding, intolerant, and jealous of his “possessions” (of which he includes the human duchess as one); then Browning shows his hypocritical, fawning side by seeming unconcerned about the “dowry” and pretending an actual attraction to “his fair daughter’s self.”  By the time the mini-tour is over (“Neptune taming a seahorse”), we, and the ambassador, have a clear picture of the Duke’s real personality – devious, avaricious, possessive, cruel, and inhuman. Browning uses very subtle clues, often ambiguous words and phrases ("my last duchess")  ("looking as if she were alive"), and hints at liaisons that are never substantiated ("the depth and passion of her earnest glance") and subtle details of expression (Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me") to give us the true portrait of the Duke behind the dignified title. 

Simply put: Browning's "My Last Duchess" takes as its inspiration the life of Alfonso II of Ferrara, a Duke whose wife, Lucrezia, died rather suspiciously in the 16th century. After this happened, Alfonso pursued a second marriage to the niece of the Count of Tyrol.

In this poem, Browning imagines the Duke speaking to someone, possibly the Count of Tyrol, in an attempt to charm him with a tour of his art collection. The Duke points to a portrait on the wall of his "last duchess." He goes on to discuss his duchess as if she were a piece of art and art only; he explains that, in life, she liked everybody far too much for the Duke's liking. Rather than prizing his "gift" of having married her above others, she seemed to thank everybody equally, which the Duke found distasteful. He seemed to expect his wife to privilege him above everyone, and pay nobody else any attention.

At the end of the poem, the Duke reveals his own hypocrisy by moving on from the painting of the duchess and pointing out another piece, a bronze statue of Neptune, to his audience. It is clear that at this point the person he is speaking to has become tired of, or perhaps appalled by, the Duke. The Duke tells him that they will go downstairs together and then turns his attention to the bronze piece as if appealing to his companion to stay.

Concerning Browning's "My Last Duchess," it sounds like you're just having trouble figuring out the poem.

The dramatic monologue is spoken by the Duke.  He is speaking to a representative of his fiance's father (the father, of course, who will set the amount of the dowry).  This representative is the silent listener of the dramatic monologue. 

The Duke speaks mostly about his previous wife as seen in her portrait and as she was before she died. 

The speech, however, is a failed threat that if the fiance, once she's the Duke's wife, doesn't behave as he wants her to, she will be killed, just like his previous wife was. 

The Duke is egotistical and arrogant, to the extreme.  His previous wife, by normal standards, behaved exceptionally well.  But the Duke wants a trophy wife who will behave like a work or art--look pretty and reflect on his good taste and wealth, etc.  She made the mistake of showing others the respect and courtesy and fondness that the Duke expects only to be shown to him.  Thus, he ordered her death. 

With Robert Browning's use of dramatic monologue, the Duke of Ferrara paradoxically creates a portrait of himself while he describes Fra Pandolf's portrayal of his first duchess.  For one thing, the breathlessness of the duke's speech clearly betrays his own feelings of pride and jealousy:

She thanked men,—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. Who'd stoop to blame
This sort of trifling?

The use of the dashes indicate the racing heartbeat of the jealous husband who has just described how his first wife had

A heart—how shall I say?—too soon made glad,
Too easily impressed: she liked whate'er
She looked on, and her looks went everywhere.

Choosing "never to stoop" to pleading with his wife, the duke "gave commands" and then "all smiles stopped together."  In his arrogance, the duke has had his wife killed; then, in the decadence of a "nine-hundred-years-old name," he mounts his kill in the form of a painting, a painting that from which only he can draw the curtain.

Displaying this work of art pleases the vain and worldly duke as he points to how "she stands/As if alive." Finally, on the descent of the Duke and the envoy down the stairs, the duke speaks of the dowry of the Count's daughter, his "object," and  Ferrara points to a sculpture of Neptune that he commissioned Claus of Innsbruck to sculpt.  There, the god of the sea tames a sea horse just as the proud duke has "tamed" his first duchess.

Clearly, therefore, the Duke of Ferrara is an exceedingly proud, jealous, arrogant aristocrat who is preoccupied with possessions and determined to have his will satisfied.