George Eliot’s Middlemarch and Robert Browning’s “My Last Duchess” are two works from the Victorian era that delve into the world of bad relationships. (In case you’re wondering why they’re both so long.) Interestingly, both literary works also draw heavily on descriptions of paintings and sculptures to explore a skewed dynamic between men and women. This technique of using one art form to portray a second art form (for example, painting a statue or writing over a photo) is what high-level scholars call “ekphrasis,” which comes from the ancient Greek for “art on action art”. Remember that 130-line description of the carvings on Achilles’ shield in The Iliad? Yeah baby, that’s the stuff.
Most of the ekphrasis used in Middlemarch involves our outstanding young heroine, Dorothea Brooke, who is consistently described in terms of portraiture and sculpture. These artistic comparisons are usually made by the novel’s male characters, who, torn between her extreme piety and her dark beauty, can’t seem to decide whether she is more like a painting of a nun or a statue of a goddess. In her attempts to understand Dorothea, these men repeatedly reduce her to a variety of inanimate and, *ahem*, purely visual art forms. Thankfully, the dapper Will Ladislaw finally chimes in to criticize these “depictions of women” for being incapable of conveying any real depth. So what does all this have to do with gender power struggles? By symbolically aligning men’s perceptions of Dorothea with objects that can only be looked at, Middlemarch implicitly brings the concept of the “male gaze” into the mix. And according to feminist theory, the male gaze is inherently demeaning because it relegates women to the status of objects. (Objects like paintings and statues? Hello!)
Of course, the truth is that everyone uses their gaze to reduce other people to neat little lumps, not just Middlemarch men. In fact, we’re practically incapable of reserving our snap and cursory judgments about passing strangers, a phenomenon for which the fashion industry couldn’t be more grateful. (Black frames without glasses, a cardigan, and jeans that look like they need to be surgically removed at the end of the day? Hipster. Baggy clothes, a baseball cap, and a jewel-encrusted platinum grill? Gangster. Second or jeans from third hand, a stained shirt and perhaps not the cleanest hair? Homeless man. Or college student). comfortable in the face of the unknown and, at worst, a mechanism to exercise control over another person.
Which brings us to “My Last Duchess,” a creepy poem that tells a dramatic monologue about a painting. (Ekphrasis squared?) The poem’s narrator, who we cleverly deduce is a duke, begins by describing a portrait of his ex-wife (probably murdered), which he always hides under a curtain. (Very normal, very healthy.) He excitedly brings up the fact that she is happy and flushed, explaining that she can tell by the faces of people who are always dying to ask about it. (Smiling in a portrait? How crazy is this!) The narrator becomes more and more obsessed with how she used to look every time a “spot of joy” spreads across her face. Critically, she continues: “She had / a heart, how shall I put it? She, she too soon she was glad,” insisting that her perpetually cheerful disposition was simply evidence of her lax morals. (Yes, we already hate her.) Very clearly, by projecting his own neuroses onto an unfortunate wife, the duke chooses to interpret everything he sees as subversion. And what better reason to get into a staring battle than the fact that his wife “liked what she looked at/She looked at, and her looks went everywhere.” (Eyes out, tootz!) Finally, the narrator admits that, in order to put an end to this insufferable and inexplicable grin, he issued some kind of “commands”, causing all the grinning to stop. (He probably could have told one of his stories). He now he keeps his image hidden under a piece of cloth. The meaning? Ultimate control: only the duke can decide who can look at her and when her image can look back.
Did I mention that all of this happens during what is supposed to be a discussion about her upcoming marriage? (You’re a chatterbox, you!) Don’t worry though; The duke promises that, though he expects a hefty dowry from his future father-in-law, his lovely daughter is his only true “target.” (Hopefully this doesn’t involve a taxidermist.)