The “Porphyria” persona's romantic egotism leads him into all manner of monstrously selfish assumptions compatible with his own longings. He seems convinced that Porphyria wanted to be murdered, and claims “No pain felt she” while being strangled, adding, as if to convince himself “I am quite sure she felt no pain”. He may even believe she enjoyed the pain, because he, her lover, inflicted it. When she is dead, he says she's found her “utmost will”, and when he sees her lifeless head drooping on his shoulder, he describes it as a “smiling rosy little head”, possibly using the word rosy to symbolize the red “roses” of love, or to demonstrate his delusion that the girl and their relationship are still alive.
Most commentators are of the opinion that the lover is insane, Rober Langbaum in The Poetry of Experience says, “The speaker is undoubtedly mad.” But it does not seem to be a convincing explanation because the manner in which the lover has narrated the story does not indicate any disorder in his mind. Another explanation is: “Such a crime might be committed in a momentary aberration, or even intense excitement, of feeling.” This view is also not acceptable since there is no remorse or regret after committing murder. Rather he was glad and proud of preserving unchanged the perfect moment of her surrender to him. People often commit horrible deeds in moments of intense mental excitement, but afterwards they feel remorse for the act. There is no remorse in the case of this lover. Another comment on the murder is: The poem describes how a man strangled his love in the insane idea of so preserving her passion for himself from deflection. This view treats the poem as a study of “ingenuity” rather than of intense mental excitement or of madness. One more comment on the murder is that of H.C. Duffin who thinks that the lover only pretended to murder Porphyria. He says, Porphyria's Lover is a case of study of psychological deviationism. The psychological reasons for the murder of Porphyria may be examined along the following lines:
(1) He thought that she was looking glamorously beautiful then, when she grew older, she might grow less beautiful, so it was best to kill her just then in order to preserve the memory of her beauty intact. The lover says:
“The moment she was mine, mine, fair,
Perfectly pure and good.”
The lover strangled his love in the insane idea of preserving her beauty from deflection.
(2) He was also perhaps afraid that he might be wanting in vitality compared with her. He resorted to murder because of an acute sense of inferiority, of inadequacy in himself. The pale lover knew that Porphyria was too weak - willed to free her passion from pride and vanity. He murdered her in the moment of her intense passion for him because he wished to preserve unchanged the perfect moment of her surrender to him.
(3) His diseased mind identified perfection with death or murder. The homicidal tendency might have asserted itself at the moment when he was most vulnerable. He was not able to curb the animal instinct found in most of the human beings. The lover in the poem is obsessed with one idea. This obsession is destructive to the man himself.
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