The Curse: Tragedy for The Maid and The Lady
By Brian Conway
Upon reading Alfred Tennyson’s “The Lady of Shalott” for the first time, I cannot help but wonder why the unnamed protagonist faces such an unfortunate end. Tennyson takes inspiration from Malory’s 15th century “Fair Maid of Astolat” by creating his own tragic poem, one where there is a symbolic relationship between the Lady and Sir Lancelot. However, while the Maid of Astolat has the chance to fight for Lancelot and offer herself to his service, the Lady of Shalott never even meets her lover. She is under a curse that disables her from leaving her tower.
This curse is not described in much detail by the narrator or the Lady; know that “a curse is on her if she stay/To look down to Camelot./She knows not what the curse may be” (Tennyson 40-41). The curse keeps her trapped in this room weaving away at a tapestry, and her only knowledge of the outside world comes from the mirror at her side. She unleashes this curse when she hears Lancelot approaching towards Shalott from Camelot, and she cannot help but to look out the window at “A red-cross knight forever kneel’d/To a lady in his shield” (78-79). At this instance, her mirror breaks and she realizes the curse has been broken, as evident by her dismay in the above photograph. She walks out of her castle down to a boat, sketches her title into the wood, and dies flowing down the river. While the poem includes stanzas of descriptions about her gazing towards Lancelot’s gleaming armor and luscious locks of hair, little is said about how the Lady truly feels about him. It is clearly a ‘love-at-first-sight’ scene, one that instantly changes the Lady’s entire life. She had been stuck to her mirror for years until looking outside, and upon doing so she symbolically faces the pain and suffering of the outside world.
This dynamic involving symbols of the tower, the mirror, the curse, and the outdoors leaves the reader wondering why the Lady is under such a curse. It may seem as though Tennyson is trying to protect her from the ‘reapers’ and ‘funerals’ outside her window, but there is deeper meaning in the curse. Perhaps Tennyson’s recreation of “The Fair Maid of Astolat” is embodied in the curse, and it is meant to portray the tragic heartbreak that the female protagonist faces in each respective story. The difference is that the Maid of Astolat is able to meet Lancelot face-to-face (as they are both alive, I should specify) and serve him while admiring his beauty. When Lancelot sees her dead, he says, “She has a lovely face” (169). The Lady of Shalott seems more hopeless and mysterious, but perhaps her helplessness would not make any difference. In Tennyson’s story, the Lady dies for the sake of simply seeing Lancelot, and all he notices about her is her beauty. While Malory grants the Maid of Astolat with more agency in her liveliness, Lancelot still rejects her and she also dies as a result. This begs the question of what Tennyson is saying about courtly love and medieval relationships; is there really equality and agency for women under these terms? These two tragic tales leave us wanting justice for Lancelot’s potential lover(s), and wondering what they could have done differently to win him over. The Lady of Shalott’s curse symbolizes the reality of her place in medieval society; once her gaze is won by a dashing man her fate is outside of her own hands.
Photo: http://www.astolat.cloud/the-fair-maid-of-astolat.html
