My Last Duchess (Essay Sample)

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"My last Duchess"
1. Pose a question or identify a point of confusion or ambiguity about a specific aspect of the poem.
A question that represents a point of confusion or ambiguity about the poem is "What is the relationship between the Duchess and the speaker in the poem?
2. Respond to this question or point of confusion/ambiguity and demonstrate what confuses you.
I think the Duchess is someone that the speaker had fallen in love with or was obsessed with and could not have. The confusion is premised on the fact that the speaker lays claim to the Duchess indicating that that is the last Duchess painted on the wall and goes on to describe her using very colorful words. The confusion is based on the fact it is possible to presume that the Duchess is also the wife of the Duke but how he talks about her makes it seem like she is not. He talks about how the artist who made the painting worked busily every day to make the painting worth looking at. He talks of the presence of the husband to the Duchess, of course, meaning that the Duchess was not the speaker or narrator's wife. She was someone else's wife, but the narrator had a thing for her and therefore why he spoke about her in such a manner and why he sought to have a painting of her made for himself. If she is not the wife to the narrator then, the question is what relationship does she have with him? It is confusing even with the information in the poem to tell the exact nature of the relationship between the Duchess and the narrator, how they know each other and even how they met. The speaker is the Duke of Ferrara, and the Duchess is not his wife, but someone he yearns for as she belongs to someone else.
3. State the theme of the poem (its central thought) as a complete point and in a com...