Area of Study Speech: Change

The Area of study that I have undertaken thus far has been ‘Change’ and through the texts of the famous poet, Robert Browning, we explore the concept of change and how ultimately this change affects us and the things around us.   Good evening students and teachers. Through this speech today I will explain how the poems of Robert Browning relate to change, its values and how the concept of change is relevant to our contemporary world. The three texts that I have chosen for this particular speech includes ‘My Last Duchess’, ‘The Bishop orders his Tomb at St Praxed’s church’ and ‘Porphyrias Lover’. Trough Browning texts, we have several different changes such as a change in personality, mood, perspective, emotion, environment as well as the main character undergoing change himself.
          As we can see from the main character of ‘My Last Duchess’ we have a Duke who eventually murders his mistress due to his personality as he regards himself very highly and is overpowered by his ignorance and jealousy. The Duke is very possessive of women and sees them as objects, where as in today’s society men generally respect women. As readers, we see the Duke as a character which is disliked due to his personality and ego. Eventually readers come realise and accept Duke as a ‘villainy’ character which allows the readers to make a distinction between the past and the present value systems. Through this poem we also see that women were expected to marry and it was their goal to as it reflected morality, financial security and social class and status.
          As well, in ‘The Bishop Orders His Tomb’ we have a dying bishop planning his burial. This bishop is more concerned with how and where his body will be placed, than with Salvation. His real fear is the quality and state of his tomb as he urges his ‘nephews’ to obey his requests. Though there is no abrupt changes observed in his action, through the observation of his personality, readers see a man of god whom challenges the...