Thursday, August 7, 2014

Do you think the Lady of Shalott enjoyed her way of living? Use lines from the poem to explain your answer.

It's difficult to say for certain whether the Lady of Shalott enjoys her confinement in this island fortress. For one thing, she's subject to a curse that inevitably distorts her perspective on things. Under these circumstances, it's unlikely that normal human emotions, such as enjoyment, have much purchase.
Nonetheless, it can be said with a fair degree of certainty that the good Lady leads a carefree life, as she sits there all day, working away at her loom:

She knows not what the curse may be;
Therefore she weaveth steadily,
Therefore no other care hath she,
The Lady of Shalott.

The truth of the matter seems to be that the Lady of Shalott doesn't have much time for enjoyment, given that she's constantly busy with her weaving. However, what we can say is that her life appears to be free from care and worry, which under normal conditions would be regarded as a source of enjoyment:

Therefore she weaveth steadily,
Therefore no other care hath she,
The Lady of Shalott.


But then again, these are not normal conditions. In any case, in the very next line, we're informed that the Lady lives with "little joy or fear," indicating not so much that she doesn't enjoy life as that the very notion of enjoyment in such a situation is largely irrelevant.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45359/the-lady-of-shalott-1832

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