RE-READING THE LADY OF SHALOTT

Tennyson’s poem is a clear site of the ideological divide that existed between the Victorian patriarchy and women. They had a gendered and class view of the separate spheres and functions of both the sexes. In choosing to sail alone on a boat like a sailor, the Lady tries to appropriate ‘penetration’ into the male world disregarding the doctrines of religion and medical world that helped generously to aid gender identity. The Lady, in contrast to Tennyson’s construct, refuses to be contained and tries to reverse the divide so much prevalent in her time.