My Last Duchess
... of his ex-wife who is dead. “That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall”. “Will’t please you sit and look at her?”. Personification is used here when the speaker says, “Looking as if she were alive”, in order to describe the painting’s beauty since it looks so real. The Duke displays a disapproving attitude towards her. He starts to talk about his wife and describe the pleasure she showed at things that she looked at. “Her mantle laps” “Over my lady’s wrist too much’, or ‘Paint” “Must never hope to reproduce the faint” “Half-flush that dies along her throat’”. These lines show examples of people or objects that the Duke disapproved of the Duchess looking and showing pleasure at. He starts to question how the glance she showed came there. “The depth and passion of that earnest glance”. Personification is also used here to symbolize the “depth” and “passion” of the painting, and revealing his last wife’s glamour. “The curtain I have drawn for you...