Porphyria's Lover
It's known that you do not get the full gust of something the first time around, this was definitely true in my case of reading this poem. It was not until I began discussing the poem with my group in class this pas week that I was able to unveil all these underlying facets of the poem. For starters, I did not realize the underlying affair within the poem. At first glance, I just saw the poem as an abusive relationship gone wrong. In all actuality, the poem told a story of a man yearning to preserve a relationship that he wanted with someone who belonged to someone else, by any means necessary.
I decided to analyze a bit deeper why he chose to preserve the moment in the way that he did. Why strangle her in order to keep her forever? With her dead, what use is she really to him? A better tactic to ensure that she would stay with him forever instead of returning back to her original partner would be to kidnap her. Also, why use her hair to strangle her? Is there any significance in the fact that her hair was yellow? I think the significance with her hair is that he used something of her own to kill her. This would ultimately lead to the conclusion that she caused her own death; she brought it upon herself. It takes the blame away from the narrator.
Still, this is all speculation.
I decided to analyze a bit deeper why he chose to preserve the moment in the way that he did. Why strangle her in order to keep her forever? With her dead, what use is she really to him? A better tactic to ensure that she would stay with him forever instead of returning back to her original partner would be to kidnap her. Also, why use her hair to strangle her? Is there any significance in the fact that her hair was yellow? I think the significance with her hair is that he used something of her own to kill her. This would ultimately lead to the conclusion that she caused her own death; she brought it upon herself. It takes the blame away from the narrator.
Still, this is all speculation.
Your ideas are very interesting. I think that your explanation of the use of the lover's own hair to strangle her makes a lot of sense. It also seems that the narrator felt that he did the right thing so it's a very good thought that he would shift the blame of what happened towards someone else.
ReplyDeleteThese are all really good points and questions, but I think you need to develop your final sentence stating that she killed herself a little more. Also, I interpreted his longing to be with her as a longing to have her emotionally not physically; this character is clearly lacking basic human social cues. I think the signifigance in her hair is that it is very promient and it is almost ironic that a beautiful feature of hers is used to hurt her. Very interesting questions however!
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