'Women are always victims'
'Women are always victims'
The Poetry Anthology and Atonement
Browningʼs Poetry – Porphyriaʼs Lover and My Last Duchess.
Ballad of Reading Gaol – Laura Ellen.
Briony a victim of society and her age.
Lola as a victim.
Feminist theory can be used to explore crime fiction especially common tropes which present
women as the traditional victims. In this essay I will therefore discuss to what extent this is the
case in the Poetry Anthology and Atonement.
In Edgar Allen Poeʼs ‘The Philosophy of Compositionʼ, he stated that the “death of a beautiful
woman is the most poetic topic in the world” thematically linking the victimisation of women
with literature. This can be seen as being explored in Browningʼs poetry where the death of a
beautiful woman – Porphyria and the Duchess – acts as the plot of the novel. “When glided in
Porphyria” shutting “the cold out and the storm”, she subverts the usual Victorian position of a
woman as inert and passive, being the active one at the beginning of the poem while the male
narrator is immobile. As she made “her smooth white shoulder bare” and displaced her “yellow
hair” she exerts a degree of power on the male narrator uncommon for a woman of her time
which would have placed her in the ‘dregsʼ of society. The provocative and sexual language
describing her as “dripping”, “soiled” and “damp” creates a sematic field of sexual imagery
making it unclear if “Porphyria has been conjured by the fantasists dream of seduction” (Foss)
or is truly present in the novel. This sexualisation however is what causes her death with the
murder weapon of own autonomy (her hair) which “I wound three times her little throat around.
And strangled her” redirects the blame of the murder to Porphyria instead of the psychotic
narrator. She becomes a victim of her own gender and position in the patriarchal society where
women were classed as either [angel/whore] and those who did not fit into the categories were
eliminated due to being seen as a disruption of natural order. The sinister descriptions of her
body which “blushed bright beneath my burning kiss”, where the alliterative ‘bʼ plosives add an
ominous undertone to the poem further emphasise her position as a victim. Through this the
poem affirmatives the question presenting Porphyria as the victim of an obsessive and
possessive narrator who ends her life and them rearranges her body; “I warily opened her lids;
again” and “propped her head up as before”, in the ultimate form of objectification in a similar
way in which the Duke traps the Duchess in a painting.
The Duchess is presented as a victim in a similar way, appearing to be not much more than a
child who found joy in even the “dropping of the daylight” with the soft ‘dʼ plosives creating a
smooth and rhymical effect to the language when describing the Duchess suggesting a similar
calming quality within her personality. As the Duke attempts to describe what exactly he does
'Women are always victims'
The Poetry Anthology and Atonement
Browningʼs Poetry – Porphyriaʼs Lover and My Last Duchess.
Ballad of Reading Gaol – Laura Ellen.
Briony a victim of society and her age.
Lola as a victim.
Feminist theory can be used to explore crime fiction especially common tropes which present
women as the traditional victims. In this essay I will therefore discuss to what extent this is the
case in the Poetry Anthology and Atonement.
In Edgar Allen Poeʼs ‘The Philosophy of Compositionʼ, he stated that the “death of a beautiful
woman is the most poetic topic in the world” thematically linking the victimisation of women
with literature. This can be seen as being explored in Browningʼs poetry where the death of a
beautiful woman – Porphyria and the Duchess – acts as the plot of the novel. “When glided in
Porphyria” shutting “the cold out and the storm”, she subverts the usual Victorian position of a
woman as inert and passive, being the active one at the beginning of the poem while the male
narrator is immobile. As she made “her smooth white shoulder bare” and displaced her “yellow
hair” she exerts a degree of power on the male narrator uncommon for a woman of her time
which would have placed her in the ‘dregsʼ of society. The provocative and sexual language
describing her as “dripping”, “soiled” and “damp” creates a sematic field of sexual imagery
making it unclear if “Porphyria has been conjured by the fantasists dream of seduction” (Foss)
or is truly present in the novel. This sexualisation however is what causes her death with the
murder weapon of own autonomy (her hair) which “I wound three times her little throat around.
And strangled her” redirects the blame of the murder to Porphyria instead of the psychotic
narrator. She becomes a victim of her own gender and position in the patriarchal society where
women were classed as either [angel/whore] and those who did not fit into the categories were
eliminated due to being seen as a disruption of natural order. The sinister descriptions of her
body which “blushed bright beneath my burning kiss”, where the alliterative ‘bʼ plosives add an
ominous undertone to the poem further emphasise her position as a victim. Through this the
poem affirmatives the question presenting Porphyria as the victim of an obsessive and
possessive narrator who ends her life and them rearranges her body; “I warily opened her lids;
again” and “propped her head up as before”, in the ultimate form of objectification in a similar
way in which the Duke traps the Duchess in a painting.
The Duchess is presented as a victim in a similar way, appearing to be not much more than a
child who found joy in even the “dropping of the daylight” with the soft ‘dʼ plosives creating a
smooth and rhymical effect to the language when describing the Duchess suggesting a similar
calming quality within her personality. As the Duke attempts to describe what exactly he does
