Today, in my Victorian Literature class, we analyzed the image and text relationship in “The Lady of Shalott” by Alfred Tennyson. While this analysis sounds boring, I found it to be quite illuminating. This is because I discovered that the Lady of Shalott and I really aren’t that different.

In the poem, the Lady of Shalott resides in a tower on an island, where she “weaves by night and day/ a magic web with colours gay”. Outside of her window is a vibrant green playground, full of forests, fields of barley and rye, and a river that leads to the wondrous Camelot. However, We learn that this Lady “has heard a whisper say/ A curse is on her if she stay/ To look down to Camelot”.

A little ominous, yes. Symbolic? Of course. Because what would any kind of literature be without symbolism?

The Lady of Shalott has a curse placed on her which entails unnamed consequences to befall her if she dares to venture a glance at the world outside of her window. Her only view of the world exterior to her tower room is seen through a reflection in her mirror; a mere fragment of reality.

The Lady lives her life in peace with this fragment of reality, until the fateful day when her world is shaken to the core. What brings about this change, you ask? Like any tragic story, the woman’s life becomes changed by love.

“From underneath his helmet flow’d/ His coal-black curls as on he rode” boasts the poem of Sir Lancelot.

Lancelot, in myth and literature, is known for being a symbol of love and romance. So obviously, we understand that the emergence of his character into the poem suggests the Lady’s realization of lust and desire. But the figure of Lancelot means much more than this.

Due to the Lady’s entrapment in the tower, isolated and alone, the character of Lancelot stands in for every experience in the world that she has not yet had the opportunity to embark on. He represents adventure, longing, and curiousity. He represents frustration, confusion, and pain. But most of all he represents everything, and nothing, at the same time.

The Lady sees him from a distance, and the image of his passing figure is enough to make her give up her life. Seeing even his image briefly reflected in her mirror makes her realize that there is more to the world than her loom and the paintings on her wall. That the world depicted in a reflective surface is shallow and meaningless. She turns to look out the window, and accepts her curse. Her mirror cracks, and the life that she has known is shattered in a single movement. She can’t turn back, as the damage is done.

“Down she came and found a boat
Beneath a willow left afloat,
And round about the prow she wrote
The Lady of Shalott.”

As she travels down the river towards Camelot, I asked myself where Lancelot was during this time. It is never stated, so I wondered “Did he know she was drifting down the river towards him? Did he see her in a distance and continue on his way, unaltered by this new presence?”
Regardless, the Lady of Shalott floats down the river with purpose, when eventually, “They heard her singing her last song”. This line gave me chills. The last song, the last breath, the last anything a person does when they know it is their last is haunting.

Lancelot eventually finds her body in the boat, and exclaims that she is lovely. But it is too late, and she has given up the fight. The curse has won.

This poem is a metaphor for the trials of falling in love.

Haven’t we all felt isolated and alone, and recognized that one solitary figure has the potential to change all that? That one person has the ability to open our eyes to an entirely new world, just by being in their presence?

Haven’t we all, at least once in our time, risked our minds, bodies and souls for another? Given up the safe world that we knew, because going back to the life we lived before meeting that person would be worse than death?

And if everyone hasn’t, I know I have, been a passenger down the river of longing where the other person refuses to acknowledge your devotion and suffering, until your body yields to exhaustion and the soul becomes extinguished.

Through analyzing the choices made by the Lady of Shalott, I recognize that in love we have two choices when the object of our affection refuses to acknowledge our presence. Stay in the tower, shut off from real experience and emotion, or accept the rumored curse and begin an adventure in which the ending is not yet decided.

I will always choose to pursue. Even if my fate is not clear, if the water is murky and my boat is leaking. In these instances, I will do so because the idea of turning back to a mere reflection of life and not allowing exposure to an experience so pure would be worse than death. Because even though this may be a path leading to death, at least it’s guaranteed to be a wild ride.