Despite their differing genres, there are many similarities between the construction of the narrative in ‘My Last Duchess’ and the film ‘Atonement’. They both are epic narratives from historical times – in Browning’s case, the Renaissance Italian court, and in Atonement, the Second World War. Both romantic genres subverted by clever use of framing, moving between different protagonist voices or obscuring any authoritative voice through lies or other characters’ comments. Female protagonists are not evident in either of these works, as they can be silenced both by the way they are spoken about and the fact that they are not given a strong voice by the author.

My Last Duchess

‘My Last Duchess’ is a Robert Browning poem described as a dramatic monologue. It is quasi-historic in nature, with both fictional and biographical elements intertwined (Rich, 2012)¹. This poem is widely credited as one of the first dramatic monologues written in iambic pentameter, a style favoured by Shakespeare, with Renaissance historical content ensuring references to the past. In ‘My Last Duchess’ there are four possible frames for the development of the Duke’s story. Through the eyes of the ‘silent listener’ (Everett, 2003)², the Duke, Fra Pandolf, and, of course, the Duchess (the painting’s subject). These four frames form the narrative guide for the poem. Browning, however, has chosen to mainly narrate from the positions of three people (the Duke, the Duchess, and the poet), rather than four. None of these protagonists can be authoritative as the voice moves between them. For example, the small indication of joy on the Duchess’ face could be a figment of either the Duke or the poet’s imagination or a simple observation? These kinds of ambiguities can be found throughout the poem, giving it depth and complexity, and leading us to challenge and question the authority of the narrative.

The story details a relationship between the female subject, who appears in a painting of the invented Fra Pandolf. We are given enough historical clues to be able to discern that this story may reflect an apocryphal story about an affair the Duchess is said to have had. It is unclear from the telling whether the Duchess died due to malevolent action or illness. This can only be deciphered in context of the reader’s view of the Duke, who tells a good part of the story.

The Duke seems to hold a position of authority over the ‘silent listener,’ and is seen to narrate large parts of the story. Our view of the Duchess is framed through the male voice of the Duke. Yet when it comes to his late wife, he seems to have struggled with the fact that she might have enjoyed ‘speaking with commoners’ with equal pleasure as with himself. He gives away his dislike of moving between social strata in this moment. He becomes jealous, and his mind warps the facts and provides the Duke with a ‘reason’ as to why his wife did not smile only at him.

The respect with which Fra Pandolf is viewed may say more about Browning’s own reverence for Italian art than anything else. The depiction of the Duchess as not very happy could be her fault or the Duke’s. The Duchess, however, is frozen in time as Browning manufactures her thoughts and feelings. The Duke, more often than not, seems almost separated from the painting high up on the wall, and the memory of the Duchess, in a strangely controlling way, as if he now, in death, has more control over her actions than he did when she was alive.

Many times, Browning sculpts the Duke’s views and thoughts to create a sort of ‘Droste effect’ (a picture within a picture) forming a hall-of-mirrors narrative. In this same way, the Duke’s character sculpts the Duchess to fit his narrative, especially as he begins talking about her ‘heart, too soon made glad.’ The Duke presses his opinions into his wife’s story, implementing thoughts such as ‘such stuff was that of courtesy, she thought.’ In this way, the Duchess is part of a constructed reality, with her real thoughts and emotions nowhere to be seen³.

Atonement

In the film ‘Atonement’ visualises the epic outer frame of the Second World War, but within that, exposes different points of view and differing versions of reality through the complex relationships of the main characters Cecilia, Robbie and Briony. These shifting realities, mostly revealed through Briony’s lies and half truths obscure the transparency and make the story more about the complex relationships between characters and the truth than the war.

There are many Droste frames evident even at the beginning. When the line of the typewriter slides across, this is heard and seen as the first of the shots in the film. It begins, with a still shot, focussed on Briony’s dollhouse, as the sounds of the typewriter are still there. A dollhouse represents purity and innocence, and yet, Briony does not seem as interested in it as she does in the typewriter. The shot pans to Briony, sitting in an armchair that is entirely too big for her, as she types away at the typewriter. The typewriter sound continues, once she has finished typing, it continues to be a motif used when Briony is imagining, or writing about the novel.

This film uses the Droste effect as a frame narrative as we focus in from there, moving time and narrators. For example, there are three Brionys, not just one in the movie. In the same way that Browning shapes his own ambiguous characters, director Wright visually molds the Briony’s around different truths, what is true to them in the moment, and what the viewer thinks is true. The Briony who accused Robbie of raping her cousin, circulates around a truth that she believes is correct, from what she has witnessed and read. We come to see her point of view as unreliable. The viewer is then unable to actually know what happened the day at the fountain, or that night with her cousin. She saw her sister and Robbie in the library, after receiving the note from Robbie, and after reading it, wasn’t too sure what to think. ‘Robbie. Was it Robbie? … I saw him. I’ve known him my whole life, and I saw him.’ She asks her cousin if it was Robbie after just saying herself that it was Robbie. That truth is what defines her character in those beginning scenes.

The second Briony, however, sees first-hand the horrors of war, when the evacuated soldiers appear at St Thomas’ Hospital and has a moral reckoning on sending Robbie to war/prison. She laments this, and to atone begins writing the first drafts of Atonement, named simply ‘Two figures at a fountain.’ The third Briony, the last one, reveals that ‘I was too much of a coward to go see my sister in the June of 1940.’ The viewer notices the time and camera shot gap between the second Briony’s actions, and the second Briony’s narrative self. The viewer will feel a sense of shock from this deception.

At the end of the movie, Briony finally is telling us about her new book, Atonement, and how and why she wrote it, but we doubt it is the ‘real’ truth? There is no way of finding the ‘real’ truth in this narrative, as the real truth is buried inside opinions and anecdotes of the characters. In this way, the movie is a double Droste effect, with the author recreating her younger self. Briony is also viewed through other characters. This means that the audience is required to judge or delineate the motivations and desires of the characters in an active way.

The complexity of the text and characterisations in Browning make the audience questions the authority of the narrative. In ‘Atonement’ the evidence of Briony’s manipulation of the truth forces the audience to look at other cues for a transparent, authentic and reliable narrator. Both of these are Droste frames, one visual, one text-based. Both question the transparency and reliability of the characters and their stories.

Bibliography

Mentalfloss.com. (2015). Why Does a Word Sometimes Lose All Meaning?. [online] Available at: http://mentalfloss.com/article/71855/why-does-word-sometimes-lose-all-meaning [Accessed 28 Jul. 2018]

Vanderbilt, K. (2006). Symbolic Resolution in “The Catcher in the Rye”: the Cap, the Carrousel, and the American West - ProQuest. [online] Search.proquest.com. Available at: https://search.proquest.com/openview/8b42932806c9182108fb778309f49330/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=1820945 [Accessed 29 Jul. 2018]

Rumens, C. (2016). Poem of the Week: Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister by Robert Browning. [online] the Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/may/09/poem-of-the-week-soliloquy-of-the-spanish-cloister-by-robert-browning [Accessed 29 Jul. 2018]