My Last Duchess: All for Pride

The speaker in this poem seams to be unscathed about the death of his wife. She seamed like nothing to him, replaceable. Gazing at the picture of his potential arranged bride, he gets angry with the man that has brought it to him. The jealous nature of the man sparks a question. Why? Why is he angry that the painter and messenger see it before him. Is he that uncaring and vain that he wants a fair women to be his and only his? Both in marriage and in spectacle?
“Strangers like you that pictured countenance, / The depth and passion of its earnest glance, / But to myself the turned”(Browning l. 7-9) He loathes the fact that he is not the first to set eyes on her, also vanity seams to be ever prevelant the more he looks at the painting, looking at him. He does not care that he lost a wife, but he must have a high social status to have an arranged marriage with a Count’s daughter. Having a wife was a matter of pride for him.
As he talks to the emissary, the listener sees the depth of the speaker’s malevolence. “Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands; / then all smiles stopped together. There she stands / As if alive. Will’t please you rise?”(l. 45-47) He apparently killed the woman because he was displeased. They was he spoke of the duchess was as if he thought she was a trinket for him to wear. This all goes back to the vanity, pride, but with all this said he seams astute in his observations and knows exactly what he wants.