Theme Of Women In The Lady Of Shalott

There are a great number of issues in our society, dated back even further than 1800’s to present day. The struggles of today’s women are presented in Tennyson’s “The Lady of Shalott.” A vast majority of women are held back by society’s judgmental thought. Not just in third world countries like, Pakistan, India or Afghanistan, but also in first world countries, like America. Society should stop oppressing women by how they should dress, their freedom, and their love affairs in these countries and all over the world.

These women are treated just like the lady of Shalott, who was placed in an excluded tower far away from human interaction. She also, could not look down her window at life passing by, but she could see through “a mirror clear, Reflecting tower’d Camelot” (Tennyson, 45-50). This mirror was displaying to her what she could never have; freedom. Freedom is exactly what most women in these countries, Pakistan, India or Afghanistan, cannot attain. In the book, A Thousand Splendid Suns,

Often women in these countries are forced to wear a burqa or hijab. These traditional coverings are supposed to keep these women safe. Just like the lady of Shalott’s tower kept the lady safe yet secluded; so secluded that no one “hath seen her wave her hand [,] or at the casement see her stand” (Tennyson, 23-25). In A Thousand Splendid Suns, Rasheed often told both his wives to always keep themselves covered in burqas because he did not want other men to leer at what was his property. In that society, women are told to cover themselves from head to toe. This is due to the fact that their beauty is a distraction to men and might make them take the wrong “action.” This is not right, society should not make women think that they are a distraction or force them to wear something they do not want to wear. Society should consider if these women dress respectively then that should be