A comaprison between mariana and the lady of shallot

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Ricky Dhaliwal

A Comparison between ‘Mariana’ and 

The Lady of Shalott’ by Tennyson. What

techniques does the poet use to create

 pictures in the readers mind.

Tennyson had a rough ride with love or at least you would have thought so by reading the two poems he wrote. Both of the poems are loosely based around love. The poem also takes on widely discussed and debated issues such as the role of women. As well as taking on widely discussed and debated issues such as whether art should be shared with the world. The poems are also a great base for artist as Tennyson was a pictorial writer.

As I stated in the introduction both of the poems have a lot to do with love. Although they are similar by having the main theme as love, both portray it in different ways. But they are similar as the love is unrequited love. We know that it is unrequited love in Mariana because it says “Then, said she, ‘I am very dreary, He will not come, ‘ she said; She wept, ‘ I am aweary, aweary, Oh God, that I were dead!” “He cometh not,” refers to the man that she loves. “Oh God, that I were dead!” this shows that she is extremely distraught that she is not with her lover that she wishes that she was dead. This is made worse because she is totally isolated from any other human interaction so she has nothing to take her mind of her lover. In the Lady of Shalott, the lady of Shalott falls in love with Sir Lancelot, but again it is unrequited love. “ ‘Tirra lira,’ by the river sang Sir Lancelot.” This shows that Sir Lancelot does not notice the Lady Shalott even though she notices him, which is evidently unrequited love. The fact that the Lady of Shalott is not with Sir Lancelot is made worse by the fact that 2 young lovers wed before she saw Lancelot. The Lady of Shalott envies this because it is something that she hasn’t got and she knows she can’t have because of the curse she thinks she has. This also makes her feel isolated and restless because she is stuck in this tower, but everyone else is free to do what they want. We know that she feels restless because it says “she left the web, she left the loom, she made three paces thro’ the room, she saw the water lily bloom, she saw the helmet and the plume, she look’d down to Camelot. Out flew the web and floated wide; the mirror crack’d from side to side; ‘the curse is upon me,’ cries the Lady of Shalott.” This also shows that she believes that there is a curse upon her and it shows that her love for Sir Lancelot has affected her and the way she behaves.

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But the poems differ by what the main characters do in order for love. Mariana does nothing and stays in her moated grange longing for her lover and getting in to a worse condition. We know that she is getting in to a worse condition because as the poem goes on in the repeated verse we know that her condition gets worse and worse. The first time she says it in the poem she says, “ ‘My life is dreary, He cometh not,’ she said; She said, ‘I am aweary, aweary, I would that I were dead!’ ” But ...

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