I think that in Tennyson’s poems, The lady of Shalott and Mariana, Essa

I think that in Tennyson’s poems, The lady of Shalott and Mariana, the central female characters are presented to us in the way that Tennyson views women and their roles in society. There â€Å"Tennyson had great sympathy for women and the ways in which their lives were restricted.† Write the ways in which Tennyson presents the lives of women in some poems you have read. I think that in Tennyson’s poems, ‘The lady of Shalott’ and ‘Mariana’, the central female characters are presented to us in the way that Tennyson views women and their roles in society. There are many similarities and differences in both poems with how the female behave and live. In ‘The lady of Shalott’ the female lives in a tower, trapped and cursed, until she hears Lancelot coming. The lady is spinning tapestry and not looking out of the window at the outside world, yet towards the end of the poem she gets distracted and wants to see Lancelot for herself. The tapestry is an important symbol in the poem; it’s the only world that the lady lives in and this is still just other people’s lives that she sees through the mirror. This poem reflects the political turmoil that women faced in the year in which it was written. The lady is presented to us as being trapped and helpless. She has been introduced to us sat in this tower and her life seems desperate and lonely she’s waiting for a knight to save her whilst she is trapped away from the world. This poem reveals a lot about the Victorian concept of love and women. The lady in the poem embodies the true Victorian image of the â€Å"ideal† woman: virginal, embowered, innocent and obedient, also dedicated to her tasks. In Tennyson’s other poem, ‘Mariana’, there isn’t a development of a n... ...estry flies out of the window (How she saw the world before) and the mirror cracks (Her previous naà ¯ve perspective that she had of the world). The lady of Shalott cannot handle unrequited love and the reality of a harsh world so she kills herself. In the poem there is magical symbolism, this has human significance; ‘or when the Moon was overhead, Came two young lovers lately wed; "I am half sick of shadows," said the lady of Shalott.’ Tennyson writes about females lost in half-life, which results in people taking decisive, heroic action that leads to their doom. Tennyson brings attention to rhymes by making most of the lines stop, and the flow of words is brought to a halt by punctuation. The strong emphasis on rhymes gives the poem the feeling of an ancient tale, when news was carried from town to town by word of mouth and rhyming aided memorization.