La belle dame sans merci

Representation of gender is a recurrent theme in literature, notably gothic literature. The way gender is represented is often dependent on societal standards that evolve as time changes. As the gothicliterarry mouvement  dates back to the 18th century, gender representation often relies on an archetypal view of men and womens roles in society. This theme is present in two poems La Belle Dame sans merci john keats that was written and  Porphyria's lover written by robert browning.

In La belle dame sans merci, the woman is able to charm the knight due to her beauty but also her docile nature. Traditional beauty standarsd of the time are reinforced by her description  such as ‘Her hair was long’ which was considered attractive at the time. The woman is also seemingly submissive ascarry she lets the kignht carry her around ‘I set her on my pacing steed’ which reinforced his masculinity by making him feel as though he is the dominant one in the relationship

In porphyria's lover, porphirias submisiveness is what leads to her death.The narrator is so pleased that she worships him that he decides to kill her to make the moment last forever. He knows she is under his control ‘she was mine’ indicating that he considers himself to have ownership over her and thus decide to end her life. Here, the mans complete posession of the woman reflects patriarchal norms mentality.

The main similarity between these two poems is that both of women’s submisive nature is seen as a positive trait by the male character. In la belle dame sans merci the woman makes use of it by in order to seduce the knight while in porpherias lover the narrator expresses that it makes him ‘happy and proud’ which shows that at the time, men were attracted by this trait

The main difference between these two poems is that in la belle dame sans merci the woman is in control while in porpherias lover the man is. This is shown by the titles, la belle dame sans merci focuses on the woman while porpherias lover focuses on the narrator. In la belle dame sans merci submisiveness is a ruse while in porpherias lover porpherias docileness is used to take advantage of her.  

In conclusion botif these poems reflect how women were viewed at the time as both female characters subserviency is seen as something that is attractive the only difference is that is porpherias loover it leads to porpherias demise while in la belle dame sans merci it is used to maipulate and kill the knight. It also highlights the role of men at the time which was to have make decisions for women often leading to them feeling they like they posessed them

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