thoughts on "the lady of shalott"
I've grown as a person since I first heard this song. I don't know, I used to think the poem was pointlessly sad, you know, like "what the hell did she die for", but lately I've found myself thinking I know what she died for, and it wasn't a man.
I think I was struck by the idea she wants to see things with her own eyes. And she succeeds. She wins -- she defeats her curse when it no longer prevents her from doing what she wants to do. She gets to see things for herself, and she makes the choice to leave her tower and to experience something before she dies. For some reason, that is extremely powerful to me. Maybe not what Tennyson wanted us to take away from it, but she gets to be free, before she dies. A freedom of a sort, more than she got to have before, and it's important. It would have been far worse for her to just live alone in the castle never having looked out the window or never having gone outside. She was surrounded by beauty and marvels and she didn't get to experience any of them for herself, she was forced to look at them second-hand, and she chooses to see them for herself, and even though that choice kills her, it's better to experience it than to never experience it.
In my English literature class, Dr. Hurst was very adamant that it was about artistic isolation, that artists who don't isolate themselves from the world destroy themselves, that creators and artists must remain separate from society. But I think he's wrong. It's not about artistic isolation. Not to me. It's about choosing not to let people imprison you by limiting your exposure to the world when you deserve to be free to make choices, even if they're disastrous.
Elaine dies singing. Even the curse cannot take away her voice -- she dies singing, because she's not afraid. She wins, she does break her curse -- the minute she chooses to stop letting it stop her from experiencing things, she's won, even though the cost is her own life. She rescues herself. She lives more in the afternoon and evening she dies than she has in her entire life. And somehow, it is enough. It is not a vain death. It is enough.
I don't know if the reading of the poem this way is so significant to me because I feel sympathy with it, or what. But I suspect that's part of it. I feel as if I know the lady's struggle -- dare I risk invoking my own curse and look out the window, and interact with the world that has been passing by my tower for years? What is worth risking the curse for? Is anything?
And yet, I know the answer. It is better to risk the curse and experience things, something, anything, than to live and die imprisoned for fear of a curse. I don't need adventurers to come to my tower-window and shout down to me to come out and talk to them to know they speak the truth. All mortals are doomed to die anyway, wouldn't it be better to die in the sunlight, if my curse means to kill me?
I love the stars, and the distance a tower gives me gives me starlight, but lately I have begun to think that I have a right to live in the sun if I want to.
I think I was struck by the idea she wants to see things with her own eyes. And she succeeds. She wins -- she defeats her curse when it no longer prevents her from doing what she wants to do. She gets to see things for herself, and she makes the choice to leave her tower and to experience something before she dies. For some reason, that is extremely powerful to me. Maybe not what Tennyson wanted us to take away from it, but she gets to be free, before she dies. A freedom of a sort, more than she got to have before, and it's important. It would have been far worse for her to just live alone in the castle never having looked out the window or never having gone outside. She was surrounded by beauty and marvels and she didn't get to experience any of them for herself, she was forced to look at them second-hand, and she chooses to see them for herself, and even though that choice kills her, it's better to experience it than to never experience it.
In my English literature class, Dr. Hurst was very adamant that it was about artistic isolation, that artists who don't isolate themselves from the world destroy themselves, that creators and artists must remain separate from society. But I think he's wrong. It's not about artistic isolation. Not to me. It's about choosing not to let people imprison you by limiting your exposure to the world when you deserve to be free to make choices, even if they're disastrous.
Elaine dies singing. Even the curse cannot take away her voice -- she dies singing, because she's not afraid. She wins, she does break her curse -- the minute she chooses to stop letting it stop her from experiencing things, she's won, even though the cost is her own life. She rescues herself. She lives more in the afternoon and evening she dies than she has in her entire life. And somehow, it is enough. It is not a vain death. It is enough.
I don't know if the reading of the poem this way is so significant to me because I feel sympathy with it, or what. But I suspect that's part of it. I feel as if I know the lady's struggle -- dare I risk invoking my own curse and look out the window, and interact with the world that has been passing by my tower for years? What is worth risking the curse for? Is anything?
And yet, I know the answer. It is better to risk the curse and experience things, something, anything, than to live and die imprisoned for fear of a curse. I don't need adventurers to come to my tower-window and shout down to me to come out and talk to them to know they speak the truth. All mortals are doomed to die anyway, wouldn't it be better to die in the sunlight, if my curse means to kill me?
I love the stars, and the distance a tower gives me gives me starlight, but lately I have begun to think that I have a right to live in the sun if I want to.