Why is the narrator of this poem unable to respond to his lover when she calls out his name? Is the narrator unable to deal with her intense love for him? Is this why he murders her, is he murdering the entire concept of desire and love? Was their love a forbidden love, and if so, forbidden by whom? It is obvious that even after the murder takes place that the narrator still burns for his love, "her cheek once more/ Blushed bright beneath my burning kiss, (47-48) which forces me to believe that there was some deep motivation for the strangling. Perhaps he wanted to keep her weak. He regains his dominance upon strangling her. Also, I find it interesting that the narrator does not get a sign from God even after he commits this crime. Does this imply that God, and perhaps the entire institution of religion supports this act of passion, that it was justified in the eyes of a higher being? By this, Browning may be saying that religion supports male dominance and suppression of female passion.In Leda and the Swan, written during the 1920s, Yeats deals with an ancient Greek myth that Zeus came down from the land of the Gods and basically raped a mortal woman named Leda. According to Yeats, the poem was inspired by the situation of world politics in Ireland. There are several power images within the poem, not only of the swan's initial power in taking Leda, but of a loss of some of that power before the poem ends. At first, overwhelmed by the suddenness of the attack, Leda is held "helpless breast upon breast" (4), "her nape caught in his bill" (3). The power and results of this attack continues it effects long afterward as "the broken wall, the burning roof and tower" (10) of Troy as well as Agamemnon's death are occur there. But the swan, even though it has taken complete control of Leda throughout the entire poem, is not in full mastery of his victim by the end. Leda has put on some of the swan's power before his "indifferent b...
