Why the Lover Kills Porphyria: Love, Madness, and Control in Browning’s Poem
Instead, it appears that he cares for Porphyria for a specific — though twisted — set of reasons. He wants to fulfill her wish: to fully surrender herself to him. And he wants to make this loving moment last forever.
“......she guessed not how
Her darling one wish would be heard”
Porphyria’s Lover is as much about power as it is about love. Browning takes a narrative about an illicit affair and does two things with it: he makes it beautiful, and he makes it unsettling. When the speaker strangles Porphyria, he reverses the power dynamic in their relationship.
The speaker is a passive figure — at first. At the beginning of the poem, it is Porphyria who enters and takes control. She lights the fire, shuts out the storm, and physically cares for him. She even places his head on her shoulder. This moment shows a reversal of typical Victorian gender roles. Porphyria has agency in every aspect of the relationship — she comes to him when she wants, she speaks freely, and she is in control.
“She put my arm about her waist,
And made her smooth white shoulder bare,
And all her yellow hair displaced,
And, stooping, made my cheek lie there,”
But the strangulation changes everything. When the speaker murders his lady love, he literally and symbolically reverses that power. He now rests her head on his shoulder — a mirrored image of the earlier moment. But now, she cannot move. She is permanently under his control.
“ I propped her head up as before,
Only, this time my shoulder bore
Her head,”
The speaker also seems to believe that by killing Porphyria, he protects her — not just from social shame, but from moral or spiritual “fall.” In his mind, she’s preserved as “pure and good,” free from sin or sexual guilt. This is a twisted interpretation of morality, but it may be Browning’s way of criticizing those who value restrictive ideas of “virtue” more than actual human life and emotion.
The final line — “And yet God has not said a word” — is chilling. The speaker doesn’t feel guilt. In fact, he feels justified, as if God silently approved. He interprets God's silence not as divine judgment, but as divine permission.
