“Porphyria’s Lover”

Why would anyone kill someone they were in love with? Robert Browning’s poem, “Porphyria’s Lover” tells a story in which a man kills the woman that he is in love with. The poem is a monologue, which gives the reader a dramatic insight into the mind of an abnormally possessive lover. The poem seems to unlock some hidden truths. Perhaps the woman cheated on him and maybe the murder is justifiable. When the reader reads the poem the first time through, the reader thinks that the man in the poem is mentally unstable, but after reading it again, the reader begins to understand why the man kills the woman.
It was a windy and stormy night as the woman comes home from the cold. As she comes in the door she: “…Withdrew the dripping cloak and shawl,/And laid her soiled gloves by,…”(11). When she takes off the gloves, it is as if she is trying to remove a sin she has committed. This shows that she may have been hiding something from the man. The words “soiled glove...