Power in Browning's My Last Duchess and Cheever's The Five Forty-Eights "It's my last duchess painted on the wall", begins "My Last Duchess" by Robert Browning (594). The Duke of Ferrara, Italy, delivers a dramatic monologue to the Count's representative in poetic form. The Count, being a friend of the Duke, offered to provide him with the next wife. The Duke informs the representative of all the habits he found annoying in his former duchess, as an instruction on the customs his next wife should and should not do; or she will experience the same fate as his previous wife. He found these habits so annoying that it got him killed. The Duke's power contrasts sharply with the helplessness Miss Dent feels in John Cheever's "The Five-Forty-Eight." Blake hires Miss Dent as his secretary, after being hospitalized for eight months. She is very grateful to Blake for giving her this position as she had difficulty finding employment due to her prolonged hospital stay. Miss Dent takes a liking to Blake, who uses her vulnerability to have a one-night stand with her. The next day, he gets her fired while she's having lunch, then he takes the afternoon off. Miss Dent tries to contact Blake every day for the next few weeks, but he avoids her until she finally confronts him with hostility. The presence or absence of power in the lives of Miss Dent or the Duke is the factor that influences their personalities, their "love lives", and the end results that each of them obtains. Power, or lack thereof, shapes the personalities of the Duke and Miss Dent. . The Duke gains his initial power through his materialistic assets. A few of these are highlighted in lines 27-29, where he states: "The cherry branch, an officious fool/ Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule/ She went around the terrace with her” (594). His home life includes a cadre of servants and maids, whom he casually refers to as "officious fools." He has a huge house which extends onto a terrace, where the duchess rides her white mule, then onto a set of gardens, from which her cherries are picked. Miss Dent is not so lucky, because she lives in "a room that looks... like a closet"." (81).