The Lady of Shallot is under an enchantment that creates the conflict running through poem. Because of the spell, she is kept in a tower and can only watch life as it is reflected through a mirror. If she turns to look at life directly, she will die.
The Lady of Shallot accepts this situation until she sees Sir Lancelot and is attracted by his singing. Suddenly, she is faced with a conflict. She is no longer content with the safety of experiencing life secondhand, from a distance, through a mirror. Her physical situation, although safe, and providing her with the material comforts she needs to stay alive, feels more than ever like an unbearable prison. She has to make a decision that puts her intellect in conflict with her emotions: if she stays in the tower watching life through a reflection, she is alive and safe, albeit experiencing a pale shadow of a life. Her heart yearns almost unbearably to face life. Yet if she tries to look at life directly, she will almost certainly die. Finally, this becomes a moral quandary: is it better to stay safe and observe through a mirror or to risk death in order to be true to herself?
The Lady of Shallot chooses to turn around and look at life directly. This means death, but she dies having been true to herself.
No time hath she to sport and play:
A charmed web she weaves alway.
A curse is on her, if she stay [stops]
Her weaving, either night or day,
To look down to Camelot.
'I am half sick of shadows,' saidIn other words, she wants to do more than just watch the scenes from afar: she wants to be part of them. But this conflicts with her other desire, which is to avoid the curse. Her emotional desire for connection overwhelms her when she sees Sir Launcelot. All the scenes of Camelot are filled with beautiful images, but none so much as this man. When she sees him, she abandons prudence and turns. At this point, the mirror cracks and the loom flies out the window. She heads down stream in a boat where she dies. It's hard not to read the poem sexually: although the lady's physical needs are all apparently taken care of as long as she weaves, she has an overwhelming desire for Launcelot that kills her. Her chaste life conflicts with a tumult of sexual feelings that arise uncontrollably inside of her.
The Lady of Shalott.
The Lady of Shallott is experiencing both types of conflict, internal, which would be emotional, as character vs. self, and external conflict, character vs. character or the environment.
For example, the Lady locked in the tower struggles with her emotions ranging from initial contentment with her situation to desperation to escape. She knows, morally and intellectually, that she must not leave the tower because of the curse. But once she sees, through her mirror, Sir Lancelot's shiny armour, and hears him singing, she makes an emotional decision to leave the tower and go to Camelot.
Immediately, the Lady knows that she is in conflict with the curse, an external conflict. As she journeys to Camelot in her boat, the effects of the curse begin. She slowly dies in the boat as it drifts to Camelot.
The Lady of Shallot surrenders her intellect to emotion, making a poor decision in her internal conflict. She loses to the external conflict, the curse wins and takes her life before she sees Lancelot. The only gain is that Lancelot looks at her in the boat, but she is already dead.
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