Killings

A detailed Summary of Killings

"How Annandale Went Out," by Edwin Arlington Robinson, and "My Last Duchess," by Robert Browning, are poems about killings. The killings in each poem, however, are completely different. Robinson's poem is about euthanasia, while Browning's is about a murder. Both poems are dramatic monologues, and appear to be very different; however, both authors use the monologues to get their messages across.

How Annandale Went Out" is about a patient, Annandale, in a hospital who has just been in a terrible accident. The Speaker in this poem is the doctor, and is a friend of Annandale.

A wreck, with hell between him and the end,

Remained of Annandale; and I was there. (Robinson 152)

The doctor describes Annandale this way, as a suffering man with no way of returning to normality, and he was there watching him unable to help. The doctor later says:

Now view yourself as I was, on the spot --"

With a slight kind of engine. Do you see?

My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name

asking the audience, whom I believe is a judge, to put himself in his place. He demonstrates how he was able to use the engine, which is a hypodermic needle, to put an end to his friend's misery. He wants the judge to see what he was going through, and then asks, "You wouldn't hang me?"

As the monologue continues, the reader realizes that the Duke caused the Duchess's early death. He tells the emissary that when her behavior got out of hand "[he] gave commands; / Then all smiles stopped together" (Browning 127). Having said this, he returns to the business at hand, the arranging of another marriage, and as they leave the painting, the Duke points out another notable piece in his art collection. This shows how the last Duchess had little meaning to him. She was simply a wife used for his pleasure and stature, and since she did not express the Duke's importance and recognize his power, she became expendable. Now she is merely another piece of art.

Robinson's poem is

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 689
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English

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Killings

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