Isolation

Prepared by:Isabella Mariska

LiemYong Yoke Kay

Jean WongNicole Lin

etcetera

Imprisonment, Confinement,

Loneliness, Solitude,

Alienation, Detachment

The Lotos Eaters

• They wanted freedom and liberation from their hard, tiresome lives (reality), and set off to sea.

• As a result, alienated from the rest of the community, trapped in a seafaring life.

• In seeking freedom, they unwittingly received imprisonment on the island instead.

• It is a self-imposed solitude, a decision that they made themselves. • Though this is questionable as they have lost coherency and the ability to

make rational decisions.• Even so, their common decision for detachment simultaneously bonds

them together, and they found brotherhood in their isolation.• In the Choric Song, the mariners sing their want, desire, and crave for

detachment from society and choose to stay imprisoned on the island.

TITHONUS

• He is isolated from the rest of mankind by the way he views death. • Having been cursed to an eternity of suffering as he ages without

the sweet release of death, he sees death as something beautiful, while the rest of humanity covets and longs for immortality, lacking the torturous experience of living forever that he has undergone.

• Tith: dramatic monologue, the words of the poem being spoken by a single individual, further adding to the impression of being alone in the world, for lacking any words in the poem that imply him being included in any group of people.

Lady of Shalott (LOS)

• Points to ponder• Do you think the Lady of Shalott escapes her isolation by the

end of the poem?• Does the magic mirror make her seem more isolated or less?

Does that little bit of contact with the world make things worse or better?

• Is it better to die or to live the rest of your life alone? Do you think the Lady faces up to that choice? Does she basically commit suicide?

LOS (cont.)• What she sees is tainted, an artistic interpretation, the mirror’s

perception.• Isolated from the rest of Camelot• Other people regard her with a kind of reverence/ fear, like putting her

on a pedestal. • The depiction of her as an enigmatic woman makes her even her even

more alone than ever. • Metaphysically and physically she is a step above humankind, which

makes her even more isolated.• The death of the LoS might be a better end, because at least she got to

satisfy her curiosity and meet her ‘knight in shining armour’. • Also, it is only after death that she finally gets to go to Camelot (an irony,

but still). • The irony is that she is ostracized from the civilised world and only gets

to be de-isolated in death, which is another type of isolation in itself.

mariana• Prisoner of deep psychological pain and deep emotional

entrapment.• In her entrapment in the moated grange there is a sense of

endless, timeless pain. • A seemingly infinitely long incarceration of body and soul.• Description of her surroundings adds bleakness to her

melancholy-like mental existence.• Trapped in a world of perpetual abandonment and isolation.• Portrayed sense of isolation and destitution did not diminish

throughout poem. • Left with a character who has given up hope marked by a

grieving heart and mourning natural world in unison, perpetual idea of solitude and alienation from rest of nature and society.

COMPARISONS

Los and tithonus

• There is a cloud of mystery around the LOS, much like Tithonus, where he is experiencing something completely unique to him.

• Both share a type of psychological barrier between themselves and the rest of the people of Camelot/ humankind, which isolates them/ puts them on a different level from everyone else.

Los and mariana

• Similar to Mariana, the two ladies are isolated, segregated in locations separate from the rest of the civilized world.

• This could be Tennyson’s link to the women in his age who were deprived of freedom.

• Both Mariana and the LoS’s reason for solitude in the tower on a lonely island is not clear in the poems, both are enigmatic figures that add to their mysterious atmosphere.

• This further alienates them from the rest of society.• Whether self imposed or forced, these two women are unable

to escape their fate without facing dire consequences. • One imposes self-imprisonment for a man while the other

obtains liberation from physical entrapment from a man (Sir Lancelot).

Lotos With Mariana

• Their isolation was a choice • Unlike some others, they were able to escape their imprisonment

if they so desired, but chose not to. • Self-imposed confinement• However, their reasons for such solitude differ, with diverging

consequences. • While the mariners wanted to escape the hardships of life and are

now blissful, Mariana isolates herself at the moated grange awaiting her lover.

• Although he will not come, Mariana continues to confine herself and laments her lover. She is in much sorrow and despair, to the point where she gives an impassioned prayer , or more aptly, a death refrain: “that I were dead”.

Lotos with The Lady of Shalott:• As one enters the world of isolation, the other abandons such

confinement. • The mariners were once free, sailors to roam the world, yet they were

unsatisfied with such a hard life. • Despite realizing what actions they are committing (eating the lotus) and

the potential results that will follow, they believed that their destruction (lost of coherency) will bring about peace.

• Chose to live in reclusiveness on the island, cut off from the rest of the world.

• On the other hand, The Lady of Shalott had lived her whole life in forced solitary confinement, and wishes to escape from it.

• Despite knowing the potential consequences of the actions she was about to make, she still left her tower and rowed into Camelot, chasing Lancelot and her desired peace brought about her imminent destruction.

• What both poems have in common would be that there is safety, protection from the world in isolation.

lotos with Tithonus:• In both poems, the mariners’ and Tithonus’ consensual choices leaves them

mentally isolated from the rest of humanity.

• The mariners willingly cut themselves off from the rest of the world, leaving them not only physically, but also mentally separated from humanity in their mindsets and thoughts.

• They are ‘happy’ in their dazed minds as they believe themselves to no longer belong to society, yet are still connected to each other in sharing a common desire, and there is togetherness in their solitude.

• Tithonus suffers as he ages yet never dies because of his wish.

• He loses his humanity as he can meet no end, being neither human nor a God.

• He is gradually distanced from humanity as no one can understand or empathise with him. This leaves him completely, utterly alone in his isolation.

Being in a state of detachment through their state of mentality,

• Tith: He is isolated from the rest of mankind by the way he views death.

• He sees death as something beautiful, while the rest of humanity covets and longs for immortality.

• Mariana: She appears to long for nothing more than the return of her lover.

• Her constant state of being solitary, appears to have become what defines her existence, it is so firmly embedded in her that it has become a part of her nature.

• This living in perpetual depression could thus be another factor that keeps her apart from other people.

Being in a state of detachment through their state of mentality,

• Lotus Eaters: Seek release from all responsibilities and work, and choose being in an inebriated state over the clarity of the mind.

• Yet, in making the same decisions and possessing the same frame of mind, it can be said that there is no individuality amongst them.

• In this sense, they differ from the rest of mankind, for every person thinks in a different manner.

• Lady of Shalott: Only capable of gleaning information concerning the world outside Shalott through what is portrayed through the mirror.

• The view of the world through the mirror, besides being inverted, is a coloured, skewed impression of the reality that is incapable of being exactly replicated.

• Thus, it helps her to form perceptions of the world that may vary from other people who see it through their own eyes.

The idea of the characters being in a geographical state of isolation, they are situated in places away from the public eye.

• Tith, waits, imprisoned at the ‘quiet limit of the world’ in the East, at a place as close to the beginning of the sunrise as possible, that he might see his lover Aurora at the earliest instance.

• He cannot leave, it is a sort of confinement to him, he lacks the freedom of movement to go wherever he wishes, imprisoned for a sin like a convict (coveting immortality and daring to defy death).

• However, even convicts eventually obtain release from their place of confinement, be it through release from prison or release through death. Tithonus is unable to do neither.

• Mariana makes the choice of remaining at the farmhouse, and throughout the poem, she does not venture anywhere that is too far from the farmhouse.

• The location is an abandoned farmhouse, it perhaps also serves as a metaphor for her situation, something that once useful, but no longer, left unwanted to age and decay.

• Physical isolation by the moat around the grange.

The idea of the characters being in a geographical state of isolation, they are situated in places away from the public eye.

• In Lotus Eaters, the sailors have sailed to a seemingly otherworldly place where the concept of businesses, money, work, responsibilities do not exist.

• The way each inhabitant of the island lives his life is more or less the same, living life in a dazed state, lacking clarity of mind, seemingly doing nothing save for lazing around and consuming lotuses.

• In Lady of Shalott: She is locked in the tower, far from Camelot, the center of activity and the place where everyone appears to be going, except for her.

• Being held there by the threat of a curse, she will not even undergo the risk of attempting to make contact with Camelot should she abide by what the curse dictates.

Death as the ultimate solution.

• Death can actually be seen as the ultimate escape from isolation.• Tithonus, Mariana, the Los and the sailors in the lotos eaters, feel

detached from society because they are in separate, unique situations that prevent them from being the same as everyone else (hence the solitude both psychologically and physically).

• It is only in death, everything becomes timeless and nothing exists. One cannot feel emotions or solitude.

• It might not be for the better, but in Tennyson’s poems almost all characters head towards death. Mariana wishes for death, Tithonus eternal slumber, the mariners mental incapacitation, and LOS, who literally dies at the end.

• In LoE: “Death is the end of life; ah, why/ Should life all labour be?” (Choric song IV)

Textual evidence

Form

• LOS: Reiteration of the 2 ideas, Camelot, Shalott (or Lancelot). Indented 5th & last line.

• Idea is promoted by indention and iterative idea of Camelot and Shalott.

• According to concepts, the stanza is split into 5 lines, 4 lines. In terms of concept, Camelott and Shalott are deliberately separated.

• Comparison between LOS and the outside world she is separated from is pulverised again and again in the readers mind.

• Ma: Repetition of last quatrain in every verse, a reiterated death refrain. Prisoner of the intense anguish of her own mind, she seeks to find death. “ ‘I am aweary aweary,/ Oh God, that I were dead!’ ”

Juxtaposition in poems• The feelings of solitude and detachment of the protagonist is thrown

into clearer focus through the juxtaposition between the protagonist and his surrounding people.

• TI: Rep of “pure brows’, “pure shoulders” reinforces the impeccable refinement of Aurora’s emanating light.

• This compared to “gray shadow”, “white-hair’d shadow” used to describe Tithonus further emphasises his difference, he is neither god nor human.

• The 3 fold rep of adverb and adjective of coldness, “coldly”, “cold Are all thy lights”, “cold my wrinkled feet” bespeak both emotional & physical chilliness.

• Compare this with the many tactile imagery of warmth “Thy cheeks begin to redden”, “beat the twilight into flakes of fire”, “the glow that slowly crimson’d all”…

Juxtaposition in poems• Antithetical symbols in LOS• Island of Shalott: exclusion, isolation, alienation, marginalisation• Camelot: civilisation, socialisation, inter-relations, life & culture• LoE: The description of the turbulence of maritime experiences and

desire for rest as opposed to the languid, calm atmosphere and state of mind of the Lotus Eaters.

• Mariana: the ‘poplar’ in the “The level waste, the rounding gray” (Stanza 4)

• Poplar tree: signifies victory, transformation• Moated grange, large empty plain: decay, destitute• She, trapped in the grange can only look upon the poplar and

wishes for salvation. The poplar in the midst of the waste accentuate her distance from what she wants, the whole idea of isolation and alienation.

Alienation through Time and Space (setting)

• Ma: Rep. of last area of last part of each stanza. She is locked in a continuum of perpetual anguish, of despairing solitude.

• Concept of indefinite time, “Her tears fell with the dews at even;… the dews were dried”, “moon was low”, “cock sung out on hour ‘ere light”… signifies that she stayed in the grange for a long time, which renders her isolated from the rest of society.

• LoE: “seemed always afternoon”, “full-faced” ”stood the moon”, there is the idea of temporal confusion, incongruity Time is apparent, all things are out of synchronisation. There are certain alienatory features set outside time, at a strange geographic region.

• The language of dream, alienation and strangeness is used throughout, “the shadowy pine”, “pinnacles of snow”, “sunset flush’d”, “charmed sunset”, “weary dream”, “slumbrous … foam”, “all things always seem’d the same”.

Figurative language• Ma: Imageries of darkness, bleakness & despair, • excessive use of superlatives, “blackest moss”, “thickest dark”, • transferred epithets, • Pathetic fallacy, “blacken’d waters slept”, “thick-moted sunbeam”, “gray-

eyed morn”, “glooming flats”• absolutely repeat her feelings. The dreary landscape reinforces her

negativity, blending with her inner world & echoes her sentiments.• Ten. Uses sympathetic background and pathetic fallacy to dramatize her

isolation and loneliness. • Sympathetic background in LoE, “Hateful is the dark-blue sky/ Vaulted o’er

the dark blue sea.”. • The mariners imprisonment in a mariner’s life is shown through their

resentment of the sea. The sea reflects their abhorrence of the mariner’s life.

• Frequent repetitions in LoE. e.g. 3 fold iteration of “Let us alone”, poetic lining at the beginning of the line. It seems like an imperative but in fact is a passionate plea for liberation from their imprisoned life at sea.

Language

• Ma: Idea of grange being antiquated is echoed by the language (refer to 1st stanza).

• Depicts her as an ancient figure, out of touch of the world and those around her.

• Ti: Antiquated language, “but whoso did receive of them”• Very similar to the language used in temptation of Eve by

Satan. He (Tithonus) was given a false state of well-being. • This biblical reference highlights his state of despair in

isolation, just as Adam and Eve were chased from the Garden of Eden, he is shunned from mankind.

Thank You

FINISH.THE END.