Pushing the Duke Over the Edge

The Duke, being an arrogant and cold man, eliminated his last Duchess because of the way she treated him. Some of the small and ordinary events that led him to this are all events where she didn’t treat him quite like he envisioned. “She thanked men, - good! But thanked Somehow – I know not how – as if she ranked My gift of a nine-hundred-year-old name With anybody’s gift” (Lines 31-34). Thanking other men and treating them with respect turned into the Duke claiming his wife treated other men much like she treated him and how she valued them the same amount that she valued her husband. “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” (Lines 20-24). The Duchess appears to be a happy woman but the Duke thinks that his wife is too easily impresses with other’s actions when she should be over impressed with his and that she was always too happy with other’s when she needs to be only happy with him. I can see how the Duke is building up to something at this point because he is extremely frustrated with his wife and how she never pays any attention to him. The last trivial incident that produced this response in the Duke is “Oh sir, she smiled, no doubt, Whene’er I passed her; but who passed her without Much the same smile” (Lines 43-44). The Duke has had it with how she doesn’t treat him how he envisions even though the Duchess is just a friendly woman. These small incidents seem to produce this arrogant and cold Duke that we see in the story.

-Sydney B