In my opinion, “Prophyria’s Lover” does a better job of telling the grisly tale of murdering ones love. It’s a much more personal story which makes it subjectively better, Reasons as to how it’s more personal follow. “Victor” is good but as I’ll explain, it’s not as good as “Porphyria’s Lover”.
To start, let’s address the story itself. To simplify it, the basic plot is a man is in love with a woman and then ends up killing her. In this way they’re both the same. It’s the tiny details that give “Porphyria’s Lover” the edge. The way in which each women dies is important even if it seems minuscule. Looking at “Victor” the kill is done with a knife, quick and efficient, “He stood their above the body, He stood there holding the knife” (Auden 129-130). …show more content…
Both poems talk about the purity of the women. First ”Victor”, “She looked as pure as a school girl” (Auden 37), “That moment she was mine, mine, fair perfectly pure and good” (Browning 36-37). Both poems have seemingly pure women, both poems literally tell of the women being treated poorly. Thematically however, they’re different. To me “Victor” is trying to tell us that being impure, doesn’t necessarily make you a bad person. We see that Anna supposedly cheats on Victor which in turn makes her “impure”. Even with that trait she still settles down and gets married. To add insult to injury, we don’t even know for certain that she even cheated on Victor, much less while married to him. “Porphyria’s Lover” shows someone purposely trying to be “impure”. Porphyria goes against her family and friends to be with her love. Porphyria has everything to lose…Anna has everything to gain. Personally, I prefer a story that has suspense, it draws you in. Considering Porphyria’s decision there is a lot of suspense created due to her disobeying, and going against her friends and family. For that reason, “Porphyria’s Lover” is …show more content…
If explained two differences in the stories and now I’ll show a similarity. I really enjoyed the use of poetic devices in both poems. You could find a ton of examples throughout both. However, both poems share a common use of rhyme. If you look at either “Victor” or “Porphyria’s Lover” you’ll notice a very consistent rhyme pattern. The scheme varies from stanza to stanza but the point is that a rhyme or two is in most stanzas. An example from “Victor” would be, “She ran and she didn’t stop. But Victor followed her up the stairs And he caught her at the top” (Auden 126-128). An example from “Porphyria’s Lover” would be, “And, at last, she sat down by my side And called me. When no voice replied” (Browning 14-15). These examples show examples of rhyme and if you were to read a little into each poem you’d find several more. To me, each poem uses many poetic devices and are equals in this