Oh, That Meaningful Shalott Lady

On my first reading of Tennyson's "The Lady of Shalott," I had a surprisingly hard time understanding what I was reading (as is typical with my first poem readings). I understood that there was a lady on an island who saw Lancelot and got on a boat she wrote "The Lady of Shalott" on to float down the river to Camelot in, but that's about all I got from it. Once we were speaking in class, and upon looking at the classic painting of the lady, I finally understood what was happening, and, more importantly, I began seeing the deeper meaning in the poem.

I've always had problems finding the overall message in poems and stories. Often I would write what I had found, and often I would be set straight by the teacher. Often I read a story and can't dive beneath "What a lovely story." Sometimes I read a story and find nothing the teacher would refer to as a "deeper meaning." In the Lady of Shalott's case, I simply didn't understand what was on the page. However, in class we learned a bit of Lord Tennyson's biography and light began to shine: he wrote previously on the idea of how science is changing our place in the world. I started putting this with the little I knew of the poem, and it made sense. Then I saw the paintings, and I realized the "web" in the poem was in fact an actual loom (and I thought it was symbolic! That's how awful I am in first readings.).

Upon further discussion of the poem I have discovered two possible meanings within this poem:

1. He is speaking on the loss of humanity upon discovering the truth that science offers, and

2. He is speaking on the purpose of poetry, and why writing is so important.

The first of these is rather evident within the actual storyline of the poem. The Lady, who is magically and mystically bound (and therefore represents the mysticism so prominent among us in the past), grows tired of seeing the world only through her mirror (or the ideas of religion?). So, once she sees something to appeal to her outside of her loom, she goes away from it and looks at the real world (or starts venturing into scientific explanations). Upon this, the mirror cracks, and a "curse" is come upon her. So she gets in a boat and sings through to her death (singing, a non-scientific, soulful thing). In dying she's shown how beauty and a bit of our humanity dies on the pursuit of scientific knowledge. This is emphasized in Lancelot's final, religious, words.

The second of these is mostly evident in the ending of the poem. The Lady of Shalott appears dead to a celebrating crowd, and, once they see her, are put to fits of fear and crying. This represents how receiving poetry should remind us again of the world around us, of the certainty of things to fear and death, and that poetry should have a large affect on its listeners. What's most evident of this, though, is the fact that the Lady wrote the title of the poem on the edge of what delivered her to her audience, therefore her idea is delivered to us as the lady is delivered to the Camelot people.

The meaning of this was fun and fascinating to discover. Perhaps I can read into the next poem as this reading in has been done.

Miss Clack and the Unreliable Narrator

All right, so this week I've decided to examine second narrator of Wilkie Collins's " The Moonstone," Miss Drusilla Clack. (My, how even her name seems to want to make a ruckus!)

Miss Clack is, to say the least, a character to be noticed. She doesn't seem to be aware of the feelings of those around her, she's very selfish, and everything she reveals must be read into by the audience. It is in this last quality that we can identify her most defining feature: she can be considered an "unreliable narrator."

So, what exactly does this mean? Well, looking online (as college students are want to do), a short definition can be found. I found this one at http://fictionwriting.about.com/od/glossary/g/unreliablenarr.htm:

"The unreliable narrator is a narrator who can't be trusted. Either from ignorance or self-interest, this narrator speaks with a bias, makes mistakes, or even lies. Part of the pleasure and challenge of these first-person stories is working out the truth, and understanding why the narrator is not straightforward."

So why does Miss Clack fall into this category? And where can we find evidence that's she's not telling the whole truth?

Well, I believe the best piece of evidence in this case is through her relationship to "The Christian Hero" Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite. This title is not mine to give, but her very idea and description of him: "Never had I seen and heard our Christian Hero to less advantage than on this occasion." (104) Why does she give him this name? At first glance it would appear that she simply considers him to be a model of Christianity. However, looking not so very far under the surface reveals that she is absolutely smitten with him. Even in the preceding quote Godfrey's "less advantage" that makes Miss Clack frown on him is this: "She gave him her hand. Alas, for our fallen nature! Alas, for Mr Godfrey! He not only forgot himself so far as to kiss her hand—he adopted a gentleness of tone in answering her." (104) Now, kissing a woman's hand and answering softly to her is OBVIOUSLY not a sin worthy of our "fallen nature," so why is this worthy of her disgust? There can be only one answer: she's as jealous as a jay outside a jeweller's.

This isn't the only thing that presents her as an unreliable narrator. There are also many cases of her using excuses for her obviously rude behaviour. One such notable occasion is when she is eavesdropping on the conversation of Rachel and Godfrey: "I attribute my being still able to hold the curtain in the right position for looking and listening, entirely to suppressed hysterics. In suppressed hysterics, it is admitted, even by the doctors, that one must hold something." (116) Miss Clack is one of those people who hides behind the opinions and words of others to trick her mind into believing that she is right, and to prove to others the same. As Mr. Bruff said, she would've made one hell of a lawyer. In this particular case, it's obvious that dropping the curtain so that she could no longer see the thing making her hysterical would've been much better a cure than holding onto something to suppress said hysterics. Despite how obvious this is, she is far from humble and MUST prove her innocence in all things, hence this lame excuse.

As we can see, Miss Clack is an unreliable, jealous, "holier-than-thou" narrator. She clearly shows her worst side in trying to prove how no such side exists.......and this makes her one of, in my opinion, the best narrators of all time.

Since I am using a different version of the book than the rest of the class:

Works Cited

Collins, Wilkie; Sutherland, John (1999-10-07). The Moonstone (Oxford World's Classics). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.