My Last Duchess: Motifs

“Spot of Joy”

At several points in his monologue, the Duke makes bitter references to the frequency and ease with which his late wife used to blush. The first reference appears in lines 13–15, where he describes the blush as a “spot of joy”:

Sir, ’twas not
Her husband’s presence only, called that spot
Of joy into the Duchess’ cheek

He again calls this blush a “spot of joy” when explaining to the emissary his sense of her excessive flirtatiousness (lines 19–24):

Such stuff
Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough
For calling up that spot of joy. She had
A heart—how shall I say?—too soon made glad,
Too easily impressed; she liked whate’er
She looked on, and her looks went everywhere.

Notably, the Duke specifically refers her blush as “that spot of joy.” His use of the word “that” not only indicates that her blushing was a frequent phenomenon; it also carries a subtle hint of the speaker’s disdainful jealousy. For indeed, as both passages quoted above indicate, the Duke associates her blush with his perception of her promiscuous attention. As he says again, in lines 29–31, “all and each / Would draw from her alike the approving speech, / Or blush, at least.” It’s precisely this blushing spot of joy that Fra Pandolf complained he’d never be able to capture adequately in his portrait (lines 17–19):

“Paint
Must never hope to reproduce the faint
Half-flush that dies along her throat.”

Here, the reference to the Duchess’s “half-flush” takes on a more sinister quality, suggesting as it does both her sexual arousal and her execution—perhaps by strangulation.

Long Dashes

More than any other form of punctuation in the poem, it’s the long dash (—) that alerts us to the speaker’s turbulent emotional state as he thinks about his late wife. As an example, consider lines 31–34:

She thanked men—good! but thanked
Somehow—I know not how—as if she ranked
My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name
With anybody’s gift.

In these lines, the speaker explains to the emissary how his late wife was excessively flirtatious. Yet even as he attempts to give a straightforward explanation, the Duke gets caught up in old frustrations. The three long dashes that appear here mark sharp turns in the speaker’s thoughts as he reverts to feelings of jealousy he hasn’t yet managed to set aside. As he goes on with his speech, the Duke’s thoughts continue to dart back and forth, growing increasingly obsessive and convoluted (lines 35–43):

Even had you skill
In speech—which I have not—to make your will
Quite clear to such an one, and say, “Just this
Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss,
Or there exceed the mark”—and if she let
Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set
Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse—
E’en then would be some stooping; and I choose
Never to stoop.

The four dashes in this long, winding sentence give shape to the Duke’s contorted psychological and emotional experience. As he speaks, the Duke becomes more and more angry, both at his late wife’s behavior and at his incapacity to communicate his frustration. He frames his incommunicativeness as a refusal to “stoop,” but the dashes subtly undermine his claim, indicating instead a mix of anger and confusion. It’s this mix that eventually led to the Duke’s brutal decision to have his wife killed.

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