Gender Roles in Tennyson's The Lady of Shalott

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The Lady of Shalott is a poem written by Alfred, Lord Tennyson in 1842. It is a Victorian ballad that tells the story of a confined woman cursed to view life through a mirror's reflection while weaving the tapestry of what she sees. This stands in contrast with the male figure, Sir Lancelot, who freely rides around an idealized Camelot. In this essay, I will illustrate the contraposition of these two points of view and how Tennyson criticizes the patriarchal gender conventions of the time.

The Tower as a Private Feminine Sphere

The poem begins with a description that compares Camelot to the tower where the Lady of Shalott lives. At first, we perceive the tower as a kind of artistic sanctuary where the Lady can peacefully weave. But as we read the poem—as Plasa states in his article—we understand that she is confined to this private, feminine sphere where she is only permitted to weave.

Furthermore, she can only weave the images of the outside world that the mirror shows her; she is not allowed to leave or look toward Camelot where Sir Lancelot is. Therefore, the mirror represents the boundary between the feminine (confined) and the masculine (the real world). It is a clear representation of gender differences in the Victorian period.

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Sir Lancelot and the Masculine Public Sphere

In contrast to the gray isolation where the Lady lives, we have the world of Camelot, inhabited by men like Sir Lancelot. This place is described in the poem as an explosion of brilliance, freedom, and vitality. Both Lancelot and his horse represent figures of light, in contrast to the shadows that surrounded the Lady.

Contrary to the Lady of Shalott, who is described as a rather passive character, in Sir Lancelot we find the complete opposite; we have an energy and vitality that the Lady of Shalott is forbidden to adopt (the masculine sphere). When she becomes aware of this difference and gathers enough agency to look down at Camelot and leave the tower in search of that freedom, that is when the curse falls upon her, leading to her death.

The Tragic Reassertion of Patriarchal Values

In conclusion, this poem really reflects the gender roles that defined men and women in the Victorian era, relating the artistic isolation women sometimes experienced in the private sphere to the public sphere where only men were free to be. This difference is vividly portrayed in the poem when the Lady dies trying to be as free as men are. As we can read in Plasa’s article, her death is a symbolic reassertion of patriarchal values.