erywhere.”(22-24)The character of the Duke is established as one of a man who believes that his is thecenter of the universe. This man does not accept anything less than being seen as exactlythat, the center of the universe.There are many story-like qualities in “The Lady of Shalott.” First of all, as I hadnoted before, this poem reads like a fairy tale. There is the so-called castle, “four graywall, and four gray towers.” (ln 15-16) There is the plot of the Lady of Shalott being thedame in distress and Sir Lancelot being the hero. There is the trial of how Lady of Shalottis bound by a curse that she cannot look down onto Camelot as Sleeping Beauty is cursedby an evil witch that she will sleep forever. There are the horses, knights, shields, helmets,magical powers (the images she sees through the mirror). However, unlike a fairy-tale,this tale does not end happily ever after. Instead the dame dies.“My Last Duchess” reads like a short story. The main characters of the story areThe Duke Ferrara, the Duchess, and the envoy that the Duke is talking to. Although therewas no apparent crime that tool place but the antagonist is the Duke Ferrara and theprotagonist is the Duchess. I believe that the Duke has either killed the Duchess himselfor has ordered someone to kill her, therefore making him the evil person. The Duchess isthe protagonist because she died innocently through no fault of her own. The story isabout how the Duke talks about the things that he dislikes about the Duchess. From thiswe see the faults of the Duke. The setting takes place in the Duke’s house during the 16thcentury in the city of Ferrara in northern Italy. The theme of this story is still uncertain tome. It is known that this was a true story but why it was written is still a mystery. Maybeit was written to warn other Duchesses to avoid behaving like this Duchess to preventdeath. Or maybe it was writte...
