Question

How does Tennyson portray women in his poems? What is the outcome for Mariana and the Lady of Shalott? How does this relate to the Victorian Era? Your answer should be at least one hundred words.

Answer 1

Lord Alfred Tennyson portrays women always in a state of distress, poor, beautiful and sad.

In the poem "Marianna" she is always waiting for her love to come. In fact, she is moruning for him. In "Lady of Shalott" the woman is in a state of distress, but for a curse, she longs for the heroic ideal.

During the Victorian era women didn't have the right to vote, or own property. They only had tutors at home and they couldn't work. They were allowed to perform duties as cooks or sewers, within the domestic sphere. Men were providers. When a woman was married, her legal rights were transfered to her husband.