The Duke vs. Jealousy #3

3. Most incidents had to do with his feeling of jealousy toward the duchess. She was described, by the duke as “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 way that he begins to describe the duchess is that she was very flamboyant, and was so beautiful that everyone in the kingdom took to her. One major incident that happened was that “she rode with round the terrace—all and each would draw from he alike the approving speech, or blush, at least.” Analyzing the sentence, usually white represents light in literature, especially poems, and the Duchess is described as having a very light personality, and was full of love for everything, which made the Duke begin to dislike this about her because it gave her a personality more than what is acceptable of the times. This poem, seemed to be set in history, more likely around the 17^th century or so, based off of the language in the poem, such as “Count,” “Duke,” “Duchess,” and “900-year-old name.” In this time period, women were thought of as property, which made the way the Duchess acted very unacceptable. One last trivial moment in this was when the Duke said “She thanked men,—good! But thanked Somehow—I know not how as—if she ranked my gift of a 900-year-old name with anybody’s gift.” This means that the Duke is vexed at the way she was willing to give away something special just as any other sentimental object or power. This led to the Duke saying “Oh sir, she smiled, no doubt, Whene’er I passed her; but who passed without much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands; then all smiles stopped together.” This shows that the Duke was angry enough at her that he succumbed to his feelings of jealousy rather than love, and he ended it all by having her go away, which isn’t specified in the poem.

By Blake Ocampo