My Last Duchess by Robert Browning is a dramatic monologue delivered by Duke Ferrari. It highlights the jealous and sadistic nature of his character and the strangeness surrounding the death of his late wife. A dramatic monologue is a type of poem in which a single fictional or historical character other than the poet is made to speak to a silent audience, in this case only the main character is allowed to speak. The purpose of the monologue is to reveal not the poet's ideas but the thoughts of the poem's protagonist. (Christopher Baldick 1). In the process, the personality of the main character is revealed by the poet. In "My Last Duchess", the Duke speaks to the aristocrat about a wealthy earl. Before the poem begins, the aristocrat was led through the ducal palace, most likely through an art gallery filled with paintings and sculptures. The aristocrat has seen a curtain hiding a wall painting, so the duke decides to show his visitor a very special portrait of his late wife. The aristocrat is amazed by the smile of the woman in the painting, asks what produced such an expression, and that's when the dramatic monologue begins: As is common in many other dramatic monologues, "My Last Duchess" offers a peek into the personality of the Duke of Ferrara. The first line alone reveals that he has a deep passion for art. In the first three lines, “This is my last duchess painted on the wall/ She looks alive, I call her/ That piece a marvel.” (1-3). The portrait of the late Duchess of Ferrara is a mural painting, which is a type of work painted directly onto a plaster wall in watercolors. In titling that piece, a prodigy points out that he has many other paintings in his possession but gives the...... middle of paper...... of the piece, so it turns out that he is in the process of negotiating another ceremony of marriage. The imaginary character of the listener is a representative of another nobleman, as demonstrated by the speaker's reference to him as "the Count your master" (ll. 49). Despite the speaker's evident ignorance of the value of life and his apparent corruption, this agent appears to agree to arrange the duke's marriage to the earl's daughter. It is therefore assumed that the earl, despite not being present in the poem's setting, also consents to this duke's marriage to his daughter, fully aware of the death of the former's previous spouse; the earl would probably benefit from such an agreement, as was the practice of the time. This, once again, speaks to the author's opinion of the nobility as corrupted and made inhuman by the very power that elevates them above other men..