Describe The Speaker Porphyria's Lover

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Social and economic strife characterized the lives of many English residents during the period from 1830-1848, dubbed the “Time of Troubles.” These years constituted the beginning of the Victorian age—though Queen Victoria rose to power in only 1837, and during this time, England failed to react appropriately to the country’s rapid industrialization. The problems that faced much of the English populace thus forced many to act immorally and to make choices that hurt others. For example, parents sent their young children to work in horrible jobs, such as “sitting alone in darkness to open and close ventilation doors” (Norton, pg. 538) Factory and mine owners, who owned the places where the child laborers worked, failed to provide appropriate working conditions, as they …show more content…
After killing his lover, the speaker states, “No pain felt she:/I am quite sure she felt no pain” (41-42), emphasizing the idea that he actively skews his own perception of the just-occured events. The fact that the speaker repeats the idea that his former lover felt no pain in her death depicts hesitation in his thought process as if, for a moment, he considers that his lover did feel pain. However, through using the words “quite sure” (42) in his second statement, he establishes the murder as painless, thus acquitting himself of any remorse that would ensue from believing that he caused his lover pain. Similarly, the fact that the speaker saying that his lover’s dead eyes “laughed” (45) and that her cheek “blushed” after her death again implies intentionally skewed perception as a means to internal justification. A cadaver simply doesn’t look alive in the way the speaker describes his lover’s body. Thus, the lively descriptions that the speaker attributes to his lover’s body again suggest that he incorrectly perceives the event to exonerate himself from remorse through
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