How does the Lady of Shalott die in the poem?
Part III of the poem "The Lady of Shalott" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson describes a curse on the Lady of Shalott. It states:
A curse is on her, if she stay
Her weaving, either night or day,
To look down to Camelot.
She can weave and look at...
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the mirror to see the life outside her island, including the river flowing down to Camelot, but if she stops weaving to look directly at the river, she will trigger the curse.
One day, she sees Sir Lancelot in her mirror and goes to look out her window at him directly. This triggers the curse. As a sign of this, her mirror cracks. When she realizes what has happened, she goes outside and carves the name "The Lady of Shalott" on a shallow boat, launches it on the river, and floats down to Camelot. When she arrives there, she is dead.
What role does death play in "The Lady of Shalott"?
The main role that death plays in The Lady of Shalott by Alfred, Lord
Tennyson is fairly straightforward, that the Lady of Shalott dies by the end of
the poem. Her death is probably caused by a mysterious curse that is
foreshadowed in line 40:
A curse is on her if she
stay
To look down to Camelot.
When she looks out the window and sees Sir Lancelot, she falls in love with him
and the tranquility of her solitary world is ripped asunder and the curse
invoked:
"The curse is come upon me," cried
The Lady of Shalott.
She sets out in boat to float down the river to Camelot. Although the precise
mechanism of her death is not specified, there is the sense that it is due in
some way to the curse. We see the moment of her death in lines 145ff:
Heard a carol, mournful,
holy
145
Chanted loudly, chanted lowly,
Till her blood was frozen slowly,
And her eyes were darkened wholly,
Turned to tower'd Camelot.
For ere she reach'd upon the
tide
150
The first house by the water-side,
Singing in her song she died,
The Lady of Shalott.
The theme of death continues in the description of the end of her journey and
the mention that "Died the sound of royal cheer" as she floats into sight of
the royal party.
Describe the Lady's final journey in the poem "The Lady of Shalott."
"The Lady of Shalott" is a narrative poem by Lord Alfred Tennyson that describes how the Lady lives in a tower and weaves because of a curse that pronounces some sort of doom upon her if she ever ceases her weaving or looks at Camelot. One day she sees Sir Lancelot ride by and falls in love with him. She takes her eyes off her weaving and looks down to Camelot, which causes the curse to fall upon her.
For her final journey, she leaves her tower and finds a boat. She inscribes the words "The Lady of Shalott" on the boat. After looking at Camelot again, she lies down in the boat and sets it adrift on the river. As she floats downstream, she sings, and then she dies sometime before she arrives in Camelot.