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How does the dramatic monologue achieve self-expression through concealment?

The dramatic monologue is a literary term made of two words: dramatic, for the main character addresses another character as in a play or a drama and monologue, it is a single speaker speaking to a listener.

A dramatic monologue usually includes all or most of the following elements: a fictional speaker and audience, a symbolic setting, Talismanic props, dramatic gestures, an emphasis on speaker’s subjectivity, the listener’s silence, a focus on dramatics, problems of irony or non-irony and involved reader’s role playing.

Keeping in mind that the complete silence of the listener and the partial silence of the speaker play an important role in the unfolding of events in a dramatic monologue this paper strives to answer the following question:

How does the vocalizing of the partial truth by the speaker facilitate the filtration of the truth by the reader?

All dramatic monologues begin with an implicit contract between the speaker and the reader wherein the reader has to buy the story of the speaker since the reader is provided with only one verbal point of view and has no choice but to accept that as the truth, momentarily. Inevitably, as the monologue proceeds forward the reader finds oneself incapable of justifying the speaker’s point of view as the sole truth or even the partial truth. This infusion of doubt in the reader’s mind about the monologue sets into motion certain events in which the reader, consciously or unconsciously, begins to filter the truth from the versions of truth provided by the speaker, with the help of the setting, the silent listener and the person on whom the speech is made.

Certain characteristics of the speaker and the speech leads to the ignition of doubt and the consequent digging up of other facts which the speaker may have, intentionally or unintentionally missed. One is the fact that the speaker in most dramatic monologues holds a superior position to the listener and is dominating in manner and speech. Second is the fact that the speech usually is very well constructed with a clear and define goal. It is not an emotional downpour but a rather well planned speech with some or the other intention. However, within this well constructed speech lies sudden and very minute reflections of actual emotions be it frustration or sadness, which forces the reader to revise her/his position. And the third and the final characteristic which catches the unsuspecting reader off guard is the fleeting mention of the crux of the story. It not only jolts the reader out of any passivity (s)he may have been indulging in but also opens doors to newer dimensions to the speaker’s character.

The concealment of the whole truth by the speaker and the subjective description and the dominating position that the speaker holds reduces the veracity of the report than strengthening it. The reader is compelled to read between the lines and take into account the physical space in which the dramatic monologue takes place, connecting clues from here and there and juxtaposing it with the account the speaker gives. This, almost unconscious, verification of facts by the reader by close observance and deconstruction helps the dramatic monologue to be the holder of several verifiable secrets, not only of the speaker but also of the people related to the speaker.

Thus, the vocalization of only one side of an argument and the reader being aware of this knowledge helps the reader to find more explanation of acts and persons within the dramatic monologue, which the speaker may not state explicitly. In order to answer the question more extensively and intensively I will try to deconstruct three of Browning’s dramatic monologues- “My Last Duchess”, “Porphyria’s Lover”and “Count Gismond”- and try to find the greater truth or the additions to a convoluted version of the story of the speaker.

“My Last Duchess”talks about the speech of the Duke of Ferrara to the ambassador of the Count who has come to offer the hand of the Count’s daughter. Simplistic, a goal in its nature, this simple mission gets complicated when the ambassador (the silent listener) is taken upstairs to the Duke’s private gallery and is shown the painting of the former Duchess. With it follows a speech by the Duke, which is filled with justifications for the heinous act he has committed by either killing the Duchess or incarcerating her for her apparent promiscuity.

The Duke is in a much higher and stronger position than the ambassador and establishes his dominance in silencing the listener and controlling his moves (“Will’t please you sit and look at her? I said”). The Duke strategically proceeds with describing the painting and the painter often dropping an innuendo –“That piece a wonder, now: Fra Pandolf’s hands/ Worked busily a day, and there she stands”- and further goes on to bring out the “duchess”from the painting; humanizing her and talking about her past; about her philandering, her nonexistent class consciousness, her absence of eternal gratitude to the Duke. In a way, the Duke slowly and steadily builds his case, tries his level best, and almost succeeds in convincing the listener of his innocence or the inevitability of his act.

The reader’s role is defined here to be that of the eavesdropper and the poet almost demands the reader to use its imagination and intelligence to sift the truth from the untruth. The poet leaves enough clues for the reader to accomplish their sifting. When the Duke talks about the painting of the Duchess it seems like he is critiquing it through an eye of connoisseur. But it is when he implies the possible ual connection between Fra Pandolf and his wife, it announces the arrival of the Duke, the husband and the exit of the Duke, the connoisseur. This mask of the Duke manages to unmask several facets of his twisted character. Her “spot of joy” according to the Duke, was most probably because of something Fra Pandolf had said- “Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir’t was not/ Her husband’s presence only, called the spot/ Of joy into the Duchess’ cheek: perhaps/ Fra Pandolf chanced to say “Her mantle laps/ Over my lady’s wrist too much,” or “Paint/ Must never hope to reproduce the faint/ Half-flush that dies along :”such stuff”. Evidently, the Duke was suspicious of his wife’s character but to the reader it is obvious that the Duke is bordering on the lines of psychotic possessiveness wherein he wishes to be the sole reason for her spot of joy or that the ‘spot of joy’ has to be something instigated by a male.

A recurrence of this possessiveness and distrustful behaviour towards his wife is reflected in a few more lines- “She looked on, and her looks went everywhere. / Sir’t was all one! My favour at her .”He also accuses her of having no class-consciousness and treating everyone alike including himself- “Would draw from her alike the approving speech, / Or blush, at least. She thanked men, -good! But thanked/ Somehow- I know not how- as if she ranked My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name/ With anybody’s gift.”The images or indication of possessiveness, distrust, extreme class-consciousness, a desire for absolute subjugation and gratitude and a glorified vision of the self is presented to the reader. The reader so far has deduced that the concerns of the Duke do not fall under the ‘normal’ and that the Duchess was kind, did not differentiate amongst classes, unfamiliar with the social circles the Duke moved in and in some sense, innocent and naïve. Whether she was promiscuous cannot be inferred from the information given to us.

The Duke’s devilish character is confirmed with the mention of the following lines- “E’en then would be some stooping, and I choose Never to stoop. Oh sir, she smiled, no doubt.” These lines and the lines preceding it clearly has the Duke stating that he never made any effort to explain to the Duchess her flaws and faults, never sought to dissolve their differences, never tried to clear the air; he just let things be and fumed from the inside. The Duchess, in many ways, was never given a second chance because of the Duke’s giant ego. For the reader, it allows an opportunity to speculate whether the Duchess may have put in an effort to clear things but the previous lines suggest that most probably, she was unaware of her faults and even if she had tried discussing them with the Duke he would have most probably, brushed it aside because discussing it would be ‘stooping’. Also in the lines mentioned above there is sudden speeding up, where the words are shorter and punchier and is filled with exasperation and colloquialism. For the reader, it is a moment of unadulterated truth, where the speaker is only motivated by emotions and not eloquence. The reader can infer that the Duke was almost at the verge of a breakdown with the Duchess’ rampant breaking of rules and can gauge the inevitability of the Duchess eventual death because he had left no other option for the Duchess. For the reader who has been decoding each gesture of the speaker it comes as somewhat of a minor shock that “all smiles stopped together.” The reader so far has calculated that the Duke was obsessed with subjugation and also that his goal of making the speech was not merely to justify his actions but to pass on the message that the Count’s daughter could meet the same fate if she did not comply with his demands.

The reader with the help of the setting also decodes the truth untold. The painting, in the private gallery clearly reflects that by restricting its viewing to certain individuals the Duke believes he is exercising some sort of dominance over her; that in death he has conquered her but the lines, “There she stands/ As if alive,”may indicate the Duchess’ silent defiance even after her death. The image of the Neptune taming a sea horse reinstates the Duke’s obsessions with subjugation and despite the plea of the poet; the reader is unable to suspend moral judgment.

“Porphyria’s Lover”, unlike “My Last Duchess”, does not address a physical listener; it acts more as an internal monologue addressed to the audience and the reader. This monologue, largely, manages to convince the reader and the listener of the pathetic conditions the speaker is in and horrifyingly, the reader finds believing justification of the speaker’s heinous act. However, it is the description of the murder done without remorse, the later cradling of the corpse and the apparent bliss the speaker achieves after the crime is committed which shakes the reader out of its immoral lapse and forces it to read between the lines.

The poem opens with a distinctly Romantic rendition of nature with, “the rain set in early to-night, / The sullen wind was soon awake.” The reader is informed that the speaker is sitting in a cottage waiting for someone, hopelessly. The very first lines tell the reader that the speaker is heartbroken, the reason for which was his wait for Porphyria who may or may not come. This, instantly, compels the reader to sympathise with the speaker and in a way, blame Porphyria for she is supposed to be at a ball and that it is he who has to suffer. However, on close reading it is evident that the speaker is not of the same social status as Porphyria; that he has not attended the ball not out of his own free will but because he not invited. Porphyria is temporarily redeemed in the reader’s eyes as a woman completely in love with a man below her class and that she has come to meet him instead of attending a ball fighting the rain, storm and the darkness of the night keeping her status and image at stake. “And, last, she sat down by my side/ And called me. When no voice replied”- this line, reflects that this is not the first time that the speaker has been angry at her and her lack of devotion.

The mechanical manner in which he describes her entering of the cottage and her consequent, disrobing is not only uncomfortably detailed but also charged with ism. It is odd for a lover to stare at his beloved, observing each of her moves with a hawk’s eye. The detached description introduces us to his problematic personality, cautioning the reader to not take his word at face value. It also seems that the speaker wallows in self pity oblivious to the love of his lover and sways the reader to believe the same but on reading the lines, “And kneeled and made the cheerless grate/ Blaze up, and all the cottage warm;”it is obvious that the man is thankless to and unobservant of Porphyria’s love for him. Her selfless attitude goes missed by the self-obsessed speaker. The woman, although saying nothing, manages to say a lot about herself and the speaker, through her manners and gestures. The speaker is strongly aware of his inferior status to Porphyria and it is this inferiority which makes him believe that Porphyria gives him company out of pity; that she is divided in her heart between pleasing the society and pleasing him; that she can never be fully his simply because of social hierarchies. Clearly, he is not optimistic of his relationship and nowhere does he mention anything about changing himself; the change always has to be from Porphyria’s side. Also the fact that this is not his first time waiting for Prophyria in a cottage exemplifies that it is always Porphyria courting the risk to meet him and not so much the other way around.

It is only when they have that the speaker is assured that she is only his. The reader may not find that a good enough reason for the sudden change of sides. The change of thought might be an after effect of and the subsequent act of killing her might have been more on the lines of claiming her ually; her body, literally. The reader may be swayed by the sudden charge of emotions in the lines , “Made my heart swell, and still it grew/ While I debated what to do./ That moment she was mine, mine, fair, / Perfectly pure and good: I found.”It is almost a helpless call to preserve that ethereal moment but one cannot help but notice that this ‘ethereal’ moment comes as a response to them having and that the speaker fails to observe any of the previous non-ual but loving gestures made by Porphyria. Corroborating with his earlier mechanical description of Porphryia the reader is led to believe that the speaker objectifies Prophyria from the very beginning. While Porphyria is ually participating but unlike the speaker, is not her only motive.

The deciding episode is the highly descriptive and unremorseful strangulation of Porphyria. Romanticized to be a crime of passion, this heinous act, unlike “My Last Duchess” where the reader immediately disconnects itself from the Duke, does not really fill the mind of the reader with unadulterated repulse. Part of the reason lies in the preconceived notion that the speaker is irrevocably in love with Porphyria and part of it lies in the eloquence through which he manages to evoke sympathy for his plight. But all of that crumbles down when he handles Porphyria’s corpse as if she were alive- “I warily open her lids: again/ Laughed the blue eyes without a stain/ And I untightened next the tress/ About her neck; her cheek once more/ Blushed bright beneath my burning kiss.” If the reader did not have prior knowledge of Porphyria’s death then this would actually be seen as romantic but the fact that she is dead and the fact that he killed her makes the this description sadistic and chilling. Clearly, he is insane and delusional. Even while strangulating her he tells the reader that she feels no pain but the informed reader knows better. The reader knows that Porphyria must have felt pain and must have resisted and hence, the speaker’s delusion and hence his veiled truth compels the reader to reconsider the veracity of his story. The lines following her death get chilling with every word. As far as he is concerned, Porphyria is alive despite the fact that the ironical line “Porphyria’s love: she guessed not how/ Her darling one wish would be heard”explicitly confirms her death. By killing her, he has reached his ideal power relation; until now, he was worshipping her but now she would be worshipping him, he had been subservient to her but now she was subservient to him, he was an outcaste in the high society but now she would share the same fate as him.

In both these dramatic monologues-“My Last Duchess”and “Porphyria’s Lover”-the women have been completely silenced both in reality and in terms of their records of the events compelling the reader to imagine and construct the characteristics and the story from their point of view. Browning, although, puts the female in her stereotypical role as the silent one, the ally but he also leaves open a scope for the readers to determine any possible agency on the part of the females.

The final dramatic monologue- “Count Gismond”-is unique in itself for it has a female speaker and a female listener. So far, it has been established that the speaker is in a position of unquestioned power and dominance to demand the attention and silence of the reader but in “Count Gismond”the listener plays the role of a confidante and a friend. Hence, although the speaker is a countess she does not need to apply any power to get her words heard. Moreover, she has been crowned the Countess and was not born one; her power is acquired not inherited.

In the dramatic monologue, Count Gismond’s wife tells her friend the tale of how she met her husband. She recalls her life many years ago in which she was attending a jousting tournament. At the end of the day, she is honoured and crowned “Queen”. However, right before being crowned, a man named Gauthier arrives and accuses her of having ual relations with him. Another man, Count Gismond, steps out of the crowd and challenges Gauthier to a bloody duel in order to defend the woman’s honour. Count Gismond defeats him, leaving Gauthier on the verge of death, and right before his death, Gismond forces him to repudiate his accusations. Count Gismond carries the woman off to Southern France and marries her.

In the first reading, it may look like the woman has been “rescued” by Count Gismond from being falsely accused of ual misconduct and has helped her “preserve”her chastity and honour. But the reader’s first clue towards deconstructing the poem is the title. Obviously, the poem is not about Countess but about the Count and hence, it is important for us to realise that although it is the Countess talking, the Count is the one with the agency. Hence, in an odd twist the actual holder of power is the Count who subjugates the Countess and in many ways her story. Her story, therefore to begin with, is highly filtered depending upon how much she wants to reveal to her confidante and how much she wants to relive.

Nowhere in the poem does the Countess deny her ual relationship with Gauthier. In fact, she gets scared and does not wince even once when Gismond, an absolute stranger brutally murders Gauthier right in front of her eyes. It does not take much to figure out she is a guilty woman who hides behind the trial by ordeal, knowing that her secret is safe when a physically stronger man than Gauthier comes to her defence. Taking this truth as the foundation of what conspired after the murder and the consequent state of the Countess spent in the fear of the Count, the poem serves to be a shocking but filtered revelation of the Count’s actual nature which on the surface is that of a chivalrous man and on the inside, of a murderer.

    The Count is very aware of the Countess’secret, revealed in the lines: “Then Gismond, kneeling to me, asked/  -What safe my heart holds, though no word/Could I repeat now, if I tasked/ My powers for ever, to a third/ Dear even as you are. Pass the rest/ Until I sank upon his ”and “Our elder boy has got the clear/ Great brow, tho' when his brother's black/ Full eye shows scorn, it ... Gismond here?”The difference in the physical features and the subsequent thought of the older one being Gauthier’s son is impossible to miss by Gismond himself. Then why does he force (for not once in the poem does he ask the Countess for her hand in marriage) the Countess to get married? It is because just like the Duke of Ferrara, the Count has a living victim who is burdened by the weight of her secret and is completely at his mercy. The Last Duchess was at least dead, the fate of the living Countess is worse than the Duchess’. The vivid description of the fateful day includes every gory detail of the duel and it is not with happiness that she recalls all of this but with a shudder of fear.

We get to see the Count through the eyes of the Countess and although she narrates the incident in enough details to Adela it is surprising to note, that such an important story has been narrated after she has given birth to two sons. Not to mention, even while narrating she is acutely aware of Gismond’s presence; her narration suffering an interruption every time Gismond physically appears. The two times that Gismond appears are when he is with “his” two sons at the gate and in the final scene when he enters the room. The line “See! Gismond’s at the gate, in talk/ With his two boys,”paints a picture of the count as a possessor, an usurper where the mother does not call the boys “her”sons. She owns nothing not until the Count allows her to. The entry of Gismond in the room right with the mention of the differences between her two boys is critical because she stops drawing differences almost in hurry and talks about the most random thing possible: birds. If she had been innocent of what she was accused of she would not have felt the need to lie. The difference between the two boys is also critical because the older one is supposed to have a “the clear great brow”, an image of Gauthier of whose death she is responsible and hence, a constant reminder of her guilt and the younger son’s “Full eye shows scorn in it. . .,” an image of the scorn she fells emanating from the dominating and sly Count Gismond.

Gismond’s saving of the woman seems like an act of chivalry but if one were to notice the manner in which the woman describes the duel it starts looking more like a gruesome and sadistic murder then a simple act of saving honour.

“Gismond flew at him, used no sleight
O' the sword, but open-ed drove,
Cleaving till out the truth he clove.”

 What is striking is that Gismond did not know the woman nor did he know Gauthier! It was almost an impulsive act, impulsive and gruesome, done without any verification of facts. Right after he kills Gauthier he marks his dominance over her and her guilt through the following lines,

“Over my head his arm he flung
Against the world; and scarce I felt
His sword (that dripped by me and swung)
A little shifted in its belt:”

   Another example of Gismond’s possible physical domination over the Countess is reflected in the following lines:

“Did I not watch him while he let
His armourer just brace his greaves,
Rivet his hauberk, on the fret
The while! His foot ... my memory leaves
No least stamp out nor how anon
He pulled his ringing gauntlets on.”

There is but little difference between the Duke of Ferrara and the Count. While the Duke is the connoisseur of art and has an archetypal symbol of the Neptune taming a sea horse, the Count is a hunter and has his symbol in the tercel. Hence, the little lie told towards the end by the Countess is no white lie. According to Sister Marcella M. Holloway in her essay A Further Reading of “Count Gismond”, she states that Gismond is symbolically and literally the Countess’tercel. If in his youth he had not hesitated from inflicting upon Gauthier such a gruesome murder then how many more such atrocities must he have committed as years went by especially on his guilt stricken wife.

Although, “Count Gismond”begins and continues almost like the story of the Countess it is in fact the story of the Count. The reader is drawn into the façade by the very structure of the poem because the reader is trained to believe that the protagonist usually is the one at fault. In “My Last Duchess”and “Porphyria’s Lover”the protagonist’s main interest is the self although they may be referring to the “other”once in a while. It also comes off as a justification for their wrong doings and it is definitely the voice of the perpetrator, which puts the reader in a sceptical position to begin with. But in “Count Gismond”, the Countess does not refer to herself as much as she refers to Gismond and the murderous event. Moreover, it is a voice of the victim; a victim still suffering from the violence and domination of her perpetrator.

Therefore, studying all three examples, one can agree that the revelation of the partial truth or the revelation of the contorted truth; the hints of which are left by Browning in titles or sudden emotional outbursts or a sudden pacing up of the movement of the dramatic monologue makes the reader alert not only to the little changes in the style of the speech but also to the silent audience- dead or alive- and the settings of the scenario. These hints also helps the reader break away from the magnetic quality of the orator’s speech and helps the reader look at the scene from a distance helping in the self expression of the dramatic monologue.
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Sources referred:

1. Dramatic Monologue: Browning’s ‘My Last Duchess’  (Survivingbaenglish.wordpress.com)
http://survivingbaenglish.wordpress.com/dramatic-monolugue-brownings-my-last-duchess/

2. M. Holloway, Marcella (July, 1963) “A Further Reading of “Count Gismond”” Studies in Philology, Retrieved from
http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/4173429?uid=3738256&uid=2134&uid=367791071&uid=2&uid=70&uid=3&uid=367791061&uid=60&sid=21101992813217

3. Mukherjee, Suroopa (2011) Victorian Poets. New Delhi: WorldView Critical Editions. pp. 86-92

4. Count Gismond- Aix in Provence (poetryfoundation.org)
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/173007