The Lady Of Shalott Analysis

Tennyson's poem "The Lady of Shalott" relates the story of a woman cursed to remain inside a tower on Shalott, an island situated in the river which flows to Camelot. No one knows of her existence, as her curse forbids her to leave the tower, forever bound to weave a tapestry illustrating the wonders of the outside world by the means of what she can only see through the reflections of a large magic mirror. As the poem progresses, so does the lady's tiredness of her lonely existence in her tower, growing "half sick of shadows" (Tennyson 71), until one day Sir Lancelot on his way to Camelot "flash'd into the crystal mirror" (106) enticing the lady to "[leave] the web, [leave] the loom" (109) and look down onto him immediately breaking the curse.
She flees from her tower, finds a boat "And round about the prow [writes on it her name] The Lady of Shalott" (125-126). Floating down the river to Camelot she sings her last song and dies before ever finding love and life, categorizing the poem to many as a tragic love story between the lady and Lancelot. The Lady of Shalott explores the idea of gender roles in Medieval society and the oppressive forces in place due to Medievalism, the system of belief and practice characteristic of the Middle Ages. In the form of her death at the end, The Lady of Shalott also introduces the theme of isolation as an artist and the necessity of isolation to become an artist. Parallel to the ideas in The Lady of Shalott, James Joyce's novel, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, also highlights the oppressive forces one's society can place upon an individual and the essentiality to escape these forces in order to become an