In the poem "Porphyria's Lover", there is a message of love that turns tragic. This poem goes through many changes in tone as the texts progresses. The shift in tone offers the reader some insight to the psychology of how the mind works inside the speaker of the poem. As such, I will attempt to examine how the speaker in the poem reveals patterns of longing and obsession.
In "Porphyria's Lover", the poem starts out with the speaker seemingly in darkness, cold and alone. Every moment that passed seemed to be with him hanging on his love's arrival. And then the poem's tone shifts dramatically. It goes from total darkness to the heavens opening up and there being light at the end of the tunnel for the speaker. This longing is shown when the speaker states, "When glided in Porphyria;(6), She shut out the cold and the storm (7), and made the cheerless grate Blaze up, and all the cottage warm" (8-9). She is and has instantly made everything perfect in his mind. You can sense rage and psychotic obsession becoming more apparent when stated, "Murmuring how she loved me (21); And give herself to me forever (25); For love of her, all in vain (29); at last I knew Porphyria worshipped me; surprise Made my heart swell, and still it grew While I debated on what to do" (32-35). By the end of reading these lines, it's clearly stated to the reader that the speaker cannot handle the strong affections or even his somewhat imagined affections he is receiving. It's almost too much that he cannot possibly be worthy of the affection that he wants to preserve that moment forever. .
The tone begins to take a morbid turn after this point. The psychotic element clearly comes out in the following line, "That moment she was mine, mine In one long yellow string I wound three times her little throat around, And strangled her" (36, 39-41). There is definitely a giant shift in the tone after the speaker commits the murder.
