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Many characteristics about the Duke are revealed throughout Robert Browning’s poem “My Last Duchess”. The reader becomes aware of these characteristics by his dramatic monologue. A dramatic monologue is a lengthy first person speech. There seems to be a motivation in speaking to the Count’s representative. With all of Ferrara’s characteristics you can tell that he was a feared man, and got what he wanted. In this poem the speaker, the duke of Ferrara, is speaking to another character who is the representative of a Count whose daughter the duke plans to marry. The duke shows the representative a portrait of his first wife. As a privilege to the representative he is aloud to sit and look at this painting. By doing this the duke is “buttering up” the representative because no stranger has ever looked at the duke’s portrait of his duchess before “… But to myself they turned (