{"id":2818,"date":"2023-11-13T21:30:04","date_gmt":"2023-11-14T02:30:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/?p=2818"},"modified":"2023-11-13T21:30:04","modified_gmt":"2023-11-14T02:30:04","slug":"the-panopticon-of-femininity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/2023\/11\/13\/the-panopticon-of-femininity\/","title":{"rendered":"The Panopticon of Femininity"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Lady of Shalott is doomed from the start. The existential dread of her circumstances is tangible, isolation without a foreseeable end and endless work that can produce only reflections of truth making this apparent. The poem\u2019s own structure reinforces her entrapment, sealing her fate before it is said plainly. When she breaks from her inescapable circumstances, her life is taken from her, and as she floats down the river, she dies with grace and beauty. The Lady of Shalott does not scream or cry, only sings mournfully as the curse graphically freezes her blood. She does not make a scene of herself or make an attempt to alert others to her condition, only lies down in a boat and accepts her fate idly. The Lady of Shalott is not given humanity by the people of Camelot, only shunned out of fear\u2014that is, except for Lancelot. He takes the opportunity to admire her physical beauty while the others cower. On the surface level, Lancelot\u2019s compliment is merely that; but underscoring Tennyson\u2019s literary decision is a fascination that has existed for centuries involving the beautiful dead woman.<\/span><\/p>\n

Images of women whose beauty defies the absence of life have persisted for a long time, and \u201cThe Lady of Shalott\u201d is no exception. Tennyson details the Lady\u2019s journey that ends in her death gorgeously, as she \u201c[lies], robed in snowy white \/ that loosely [flows] to left and right.\u201d The image is almost ghostly and otherworldly, calling to mind spectral figures robed in their own snowy white sheets. She sings as she floats, invoking tropes reflective of characters like <\/span>Hamlet<\/span><\/i>\u2019s Ophelia, who herself floats down a river, singing eerily in her madness before she drowns. Unlike Ophelia, however, the Lady chooses to pass in such a dramatic manner. She paints the perfect picture to be found within, a beautiful maiden clad in innocent white floating peacefully toward Camelot.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Once the Lady has passed, one can hope that she will be able to achieve the freedom and peace she was denied in life. The one trait that is noted about the Lady once she is found by others, besides their own anxiety regarding her origins, is her appearance: \u201cBut Lancelot mused a little space; \/ He said, \u2018She has a lovely face.\u2019\u201d Before Lancelot even wonders about the Lady\u2019s circumstances or history, he thinks to point out her beauty. She cannot exist, even in death, without being viewed for her looks over all else. The reader is not told exactly what is done with the Lady after Lancelot\u2019s comment, but it is all too clear that Tennyson\u2019s construction of the story around the Lady\u2019s beautiful death suggests larger themes at play.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Lady of Shalott is doomed from the start. The existential dread of her circumstances is tangible, isolation without a foreseeable end and endless work that can produce only reflections of truth making this apparent. The poem\u2019s own structure reinforces her entrapment, sealing her fate before it is said plainly. When she breaks from her … Continue reading The Panopticon of Femininity<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5330,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[169399],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2818","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2023-blog-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2818","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5330"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2818"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2818\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}