Choose one from the following questions to write an essay. Cite texts to support your argument.
1) The story of the Lady of Shalott is used as an intertextul allusion in The Virgin and the Gipsy. What are the implications and significance of this citation?
2) The followings are said to be the recurring themes of Lawrence's work: the war between conscious, mental puritanism and unconscious, primitive sensuality, the contest for a woman between a supercivilized man and an inarticulate man of organic earth, antagonism toward authority, degradation of the man whose sterility is caused by an industrialized society, and the search for the potential powers of a subconscious mind.
Identify at least one above-mentioned theme(s) in The Virgin and the Gipsy and explicate it/them.
23 comments:
In Lawrence’s“The Virgin and the Gipsy”, one of its chief themes is concerned with the war between conscious, mental puritanism and unconscious, primitive sensuality. Out on a trip with some friends one Sunday afternoon, Yvette encounters a Gypsy and his family, which reinforces her loathing toward the oppressive and lifeless domesticity of the vicarage. In the story, the rectory is described as an ugly stone house with the shut window, making the air stuffy and unclean. Moreover, it says in page 14 that“the shabby furniture seemed somehow sordid, nothing was fresh.”In contrast with her house, however, the Gipsy life style is full of vitality and freedom, and this is the very thing that Yvette longs for. As a result, we can note that Yvette is always torn between the reality and her love for the totally opposite way of life. What’s more, the meeting with the Gipsy also arises in Yvette’s heart the sexual curiosity she has not felt before. In page 34, for example, it mentions that“she met his eyes for a second, their level search, their insolence, their complete indifferent to people like Bob and Leo, and something took fire in her breast.”Furthermore, the physical depictions of the Gipsy man, such as“loose-bodied”, suggests the awakening of Yvette’s hidden side as well.
For me, even though the Gipsy man is gone in the end, and Yvette does not leave with him, the open ending enables us to let our imagination go wild.
1)
When comparing The Lady of Shalott and The Virgin and the Gipsy, we can see that there are many similarities.
The main character in the lady of Shalott, Elaime, was forced to live alone in the tower. The only thing she could do was looking at the reflection of the outside world in the mirror and weaving what she had seen into the tapestry.
And Yvette, who was the leading character of The Virgin and the Gipsy was closely in common to Elaime. Yvette lived in the ugly stone house down by the river Papple. When she was at home, the house struck a chill into her heart. “It seemed ugly, and almost sordid, with the dank air of that middle-class, degenerated comfort which has ceased to be comfortable and has turned stuffy, unclean.” In addition, her family was as dull as the house. The Mater, who was described as an old toad was “stony, implacable will-to-power in the old and motherly-seeming Granny.” Also, she had “a cunning heart, seeking forever her own female power.” Yvette’s heart was full of hatred toward her grandmother. As for her father, who was a rector was a spiritual paralysis man in Yvette eyes: “He was getting heavy and inert, sitting in his study all day, never taking exercise.”
Elaime was forbidden to look the outside world directly through the window. Otherwise, the cast of the spell would come true.
To Yvette, her home made her a feeling of imprisonment. She wanted to leave where she live as she said: “The village of Papplewick was comparatively lonely, almost lost, the life in it stony and dour. Everything was stone, with a hardness that was almost poetic, it was so unrelenting.” Therefore, she often gazed through the window, looking at the load and imagining someone would come along by the river and sining Tirra-lirra, like the Lady of Shalott.
Back to Elaime, one day, when she was weaving, she saw the reflection of Lancelot in the mirror. Though she was not allowed, she looked out the window at him. Suddenly, the mirror shattered. The curse was about to happened.
The circumstance was similar to Yvette. The gipsy man was a deep attraction, a vigorous desire to Yvette. When she met his dark eyes, “something took fire in her breast.” For Yvette, the gipsy was the only one made her feel so different. And the allusion of the breaking mirror could also be found when the Mater said: “There shall be no mirrors broken in this house” It indicated that Yvette should never break the rules like her mother She-who-was-Cynthia.
The significance of using the Lady of Shalott as the allusion is to combine the theme of The Virgin and the Gipsy. That is to break the confinement. Both of the main characters are confined figures. In Victorian period, people live in a conservative and conventional way of life, especially women, having no freedom and are always under the force of men and upper class. As a result, women are separated from the outside world. However, as a modern human being, D. H. Lawrence promotes us to be free-spirited, strong-minded, independent and to seek a world which is much untamed and wild.
Julia 69704010
2)
In “The Virgin and the Gipsy ”, there is a theme of antagonism toward authority. Yvette is a new woman, her thought is different fro, her granny, her father and her aunt. She has free spirit, and is not a traditional girl. In chapter two, the writer first described them “they were quite usual thing, tall young creatures with fresh, sensitive faces and bobbed hair and young-manly, deuce-take-it manners.” From the former sentence, the reader will have an image of Yvette and her sister. After they return home, the writer described it is a grey day, which means the atmosphere in their home. And the following paragraph about their house and family members, also give the reader a image of traditional middle-class family, which is stuffy and inert, even the food makes Yvette feel disgusting.
Then, in a trip, Yvette meets a Gipsy. She feels the freedom which she wants to seek for. She starts to fight for her freedom. She takes Aunt Gissie’s money, and causes the first conflict with her father. “Her father is afraid his daughter was developing some rank, tainted qualities of She-who-was-Cynthia.” Her father is afraid her daughter is like her mother. Here, the readers can see that Yvette’s mother has a free spirit while her father is a moral slave. The conflict between Yvette and her father represent the antagonism toward authority.
1) The story of the Lady of Shalott is used as an intertextul allusion in The Virgin and the Gipsy. What are the implications and significance of this citation?
"The Lady of Shalott" is a Victorian poem. The story describes that the lady of Shalott lives in a tower. She weaves all day long. Besides, she looks everything out of the tower with a mirror. In page 57 of the virgin and the Gipsy, it also describes a mirror to imply the interior of Yvette’s heart. In page 52, it mentions that “Only she lay and wished she were a gipsy…never set foot in a house.“ This paragraph implies that Yvette wants to escape from the old stone house; she wants freedom. Oppositely, she is still imprisoned in the “dead house.” To compare the lady of Shalott, Elaime is also confined in the tower; just like Yvette. In page 58, her grandmother said “Don’t break it in this house, wherever it came from.” It is a warning to Yvette that she can’t break the rules in the house. Mirrors are symbols as fetters. At the end of Chapter four, it mentioned “like the lady of Shalott, she seemed always to image that someone would come along singing Tirra-lirra! Or something equally intelligent, by the river.” In the lady of Shalott, Elaime escapes from the tower finally. Lancelot sings Tirra-lirra along the river. As to Yvette, she thinks that she is like Elaime who was imprisoned in the tower, so she wants to leave away from the house. Moreover, Yvette wants the gipsy man could come closer to her, just like Lancelot to Elaime. She wants to break the confinement.
1)
The story of the Lady of Shalott is used as an allusion in “The Virgin and the Gipsy.” There are several implications and similarities between Shalott and the leading character, Yvette.
First, they are both controlled. Due to the curse, Shalott can only see the outside world from the window in her room instead of going out, and stay in her room weaving. Living with The Mater, Granny, who is like the old toad and Aunt Cissie in an ugly stone house down by the river Papple, Yvette cannot breathe fresh air. Like Shalott, Yvette sometimes gazes through the window, and imagines that someone would come along singing “Tirra-lirra,” so she can flee from her house for Gypsy’s free living style. “She hates the rectory and everything it implied… In the rectory there was never fresh air. And in the souls of the people, the air was stale till it stank.” (52) She hates the sort of putridity in the life. In short, Shalott is locked by the curse, Yvette is locked by her family, and they eager to be free. Secondly, Shalott finally decides to go out to see someone who fascinates her, even if she knows that she will die if she steps out of her room. Her behavior is similar to Yvette’s. Being described “young-manly, deuce-take-it manners” (11), Yvette isn’t traditional as her families, and likes to challenge even if there are obstacles.
Comparing Yvette’s condition to the story of the Lady of Shalott, we can find the significance of this citation. Both Yvette and Shalott are limited and controlled by certain bondages, not only the material factors but mental feelings. This citation emphasizes Yvette’s desire of fleeing from her family, even if her home looks civilized when it’s compared to the gypsy’s.
1) The story of the Lady of Shalott is used as an intertextul allusion in The Virgin and the Gipsy. What are the implications and significance of this citation?
In The Virgin and the Gipsy, the citation of “the story of the Lady of Shalott” is used to imply Yvette’s situation of confinement, Yvette’s eager of being together with the Gipsy, and the foreshadowing of the ending. Furthermore, those two stories can be compared to each other by some similar images, such as the condition of being confined, the river and bridge out of window.
First, Yvette is imprisoned in her house d, and the lady of Shalott is imprisoned in tower by a course. In chapter 4, Yvette’s thoughts express her eager of freedom and the hatred of the rectory, which symbols the hypocrisy of the middle class: “Only she lay and wished she were a gipsy. To live in a camp, in a caravan, and never set foot in a house.” (52) “Her heart was hard with repugnance, against the rectory.” (52) “Yvette thinks she hates the rectory, and everything it implied. The whole stagnant, sewerage sort of life, where sewerage is never mentioned, but where it seems to smell from the centre of every two-legged inmate from Granny to the servants, was foul.” (52) Furthermore, in the end of chapter 4, the description of Yvette is very similar to the story of the lady of Shalott, and it implies that she would break out her confinement like the lady of Shalott: “At the first landing, she stood as she nearly always did, to gaze through the window that looked to the road and the bridge. Like the lady of Shalott, she seemed always to imagine that someone would come along singing Tirra-lirra! or something equally intelligent, by the river. (62) Yvette thinks the gipsy as her Lancelot, who is charming and singing Tirra-lirra. In the end of “The Virgin and the Gipsy”, Yvette does break out her confinement, and like the lady of Shalott, she gives the image of the lady being in water.
In Lawrence’s works, the theme of instinct, the wild and free spirit is very important, he attacks the deadening restrictiveness of middle-class conventional living and the domesticated mind. The main character Yvette in “The virgin and the Gipsy” reflects what Lawrence wants- the forces of liberation represented by an outsider and the spontaneous emotion.
In the story, Lawrence uses some words like sordid, stuffy, inert, dark and gloomy to describe the people in the house and the country, which shows how terrible, barren and impotent the middle-class is. Unlike her father, who is sitting in his study all day, Yvette likes talking to the working men, because they have often such fine, hard heads, and the most important, they are in another world- the wild world, not intellectual world. Yvette is a girl, who has her own will and free spirit; she doesn’t like to be tightened by the rigid gentility, she wants to fall violently in love, regardless of the stiff society; therefore when she meets the gipsy, something takes fire in her breast, she is totally attracted by the strong, handsome and loose-bodied gipsy man. Later, she is interested in Mrs. Fawcett, who is similar to Yvette’s mother, abandoning their family to follow their true love. In page 50, first full paragraph, “Yvette began to realise the other sanctity of her self, the sanctity of her sensitive, clean flesh and blood, which the Saywells with their so-called morality, succeeded in defiling. They always wanted to defile it. They were life unbelievers. Whereas, perhaps She-who-was-Cynthia had only been a moral unbeliever.” Yvette is like her mother, a moral unbeliever, wanting to create her own life by herself.
The following will be my answer for question number one.
I believe that the allusion of the lady of Shallot is used in The virgin and the gypsy for the similarities that the protagonists and themes share in these two stories. The lady of Shallot is created by poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson, and appears in Victorian ballad. The lady of Shallot is depicted as a woman who lives by a river alone and is cursed. Therefore, she has to keep weaving a magic web and cannot look directly outside the world. The only source for her to the outside world is to look at the reflection from a mirror. We can see how limited and oppressed this female character is.
The protagonist of The virgin of gypsy, Yvette, is a rather oppressed female character, too. She longs for escape from her current condition, which is to live in a house that she finds it similar to imprisonment and she longs for freedom and that is the desire surging in her blood.
In The virgin and the gypsy, there are lines and ideas refer to the allusion of The lady of Shallot. For example, the grandmother said “Don’t break it in this house, wherever it came from.” which refers to a mirror, which is a symbol used in The lady of Shallot. In the end of the story, the Tirra-lirra song appears just like it does in The lady of Shallot. Both of these two females are escaped from confinement in a sense, since The lady of Shallot leaves her house eventually and Yvette is saved during flood. They are free and liberated finally.
The whole story of Virgin and the Gipsy I think it revolves around the antagonism toward authority, for Cynthia and Yvette are two rebels in this work. Owing to Cynthia can’t endure the inert, vulgar husband, and the dead, ugly and muggy rectory, therefore she pursues her life without hesitation, and determinedly abandons her children, rebels the Vicar and Granny those who can be regard as moral believers, and who hold their families in their powers.
Compared to Yvette, Lucille is more aware of that they are being controlled by the chubby and autocratic Granny, however, Lucille does not take the intense means as Yvette does, she just find a job makes her away that rigid house, or once a while fight with Granny. But Yvette, like their mother, has a free and unrestrained mind, she is not dread doing those which seems “unmoral” or “uncourteous” behaviors. She taunts for her “moral” grandmother and father, lingers with those follow their inclinations’ Gipsy and associates with Eastwoods who is dauntless to pursue her love life. She antagonizes the moral standards and authority, like she disdains Leo since she thinks “nothing more ridiculous could be imagined.” (74) Yvette also thinks that “the sanctity of her sensitive, clean flesh and blood, which the Saywells with their so- called morality, succeeded in defiling.”(50)
However, I do not think Yvette is a real authority rebel, she stopped seeing Eastwoods when her father threatens that keep seeing Wastwoods he will take her to mental home, and she always not active in taking means to follow her mind, it seems that she always being passive, waiting someone to liberate her, not like her mother, take real actions which really subverts her life and strike hardly the life of Granny and the Vicar.
The Lady of Shalott is a magical being who lives alone on an island upstream from King Arthur's Camelot. She is forbidden by the magic to look at the outside world directly. One day, she sees the reflection of Sir Lancelot riding alone. Although she knows that it is forbidden, she looks out the window at him. The mirror shatters, the tapestry flies off on the wind, and the Lady feels the power of her curse. The lady leaves her castle, finds a boat, writes her name on it, gets into the boat, sets it adrift, and sings her death song as she drifts down the river to Camelot. When Lancelot comes, he prays that God will have mercy on her soul.
The two girls, Yvette and Lucille, risk being suffocated by the life they now lead at the Vicarage. They try their utmost every day to bring color and fun into their lives. Out on a trip with some friends one Sunday afternoon, Yvette encounters a Gypsy and his family and this meeting reinforces her disenchantment with the oppressive domesticity of the vicarage. It also awakens in her a sexual curiosity she has not felt before, despite having admirers. She also befriends a Jewish woman and her amour. When her father finds out about this friendship, he threatens her with "the asylum" and Yvette realizes that at his heart her father, too, is mean spirited and shallow. Yvette dreams that someone would sing Tirra-lirra for her, like the Lady of Shallot anticipates in the story, which implied that her extreme desire and intent to the unfamiliar and fantastic Gipsy.
2)
In the novel, the contest for Yvette between Leo and the gipsy is a contrast of a supercivilized man and a free-born will gipsy who also represents Yvette’s desire to escape from the Saywells. In Yvette eyes, “Leo, who was a sort of mastiff among the house-dogs.” Also, “Leo’s bold and patent smile only hit her on the outside of the body, like a tennis ball, and caused the same kind of sudden irritated reaction.” On contrary, the gipsy “shoot her in some vital, undiscovered place, unerring.” The theme in the novel symbolizes the defiant contempt of the middle- class and her deeper desire for freedom.
The Saywells family signals the moral, sanctified and middle-class family. Nevertheless, Yvette despises her family and loathes the atmosphere of the Saywells. From the text, “Her heart was hard with repugnance, against the rectory. She loathed these houses with their indoor sanitation and their bathrooms, and their extraordinary repulsiveness. She hated the rectory, and everything it implied. ” Yvette detests the family which seems moral and authorized. In addition, “The whole stagnant, sewerage sort of life, where sewerage is never mentioned, but where it seems to smell from the centre of every two-legged inmate, from Granny to the servants, was foul…….In the rectory there was never fresh air. And in the souls of the people, the air was stale till it stank. “Yvette criticizes the middle-class ideology-clean and against the authority. She hates the rectory interior, the sort of putridity in the life. She emphasizes the degradation of the man as a result from the industrialized society and points out the sterility of the industrialized society. The most representative figure under the situation is the rector, who symbolizes corrupted authority in the novel. He is respectable by people outside in the town because of his rank; however, he is a degraded man in the house, and he makes no impact on his two daughters and their lives. The rector seems like a moral figure in Yvette’s mind at first, nonetheless, after some events she encounters and her father’s distrust toward her, Yvette is forced into a confrontation with her sneering father’s hidden evil and self-righteousness. She is aware of her father's "degrading unbelief, the worm which was his heart's core."
1)The story of the Lady of Shalott is used as an intertextul allusion in The Virgin and the Gipsy. What are the implications and significance of this citation?
In The Virgin and the Gipsy, the story of the Lady of Shalott is an allusion. The image of the Lady of Shalott is a depressed woman.Yvette, the heroines has familiar situation with the Lady of Shalott. In page 62,“She stood as she nearly always did, to gaze through the window that looked to the road and the bridge. Like the Lady of Shalott, she seemed always to image that someone would come along singing Tirra-lirra! or something equally intelligent, by the river.” They are restrained having no right to pursue those they love. Only they can do is to stay indoor and look outside. If they violate, they will be cursed. However, in their mind, the aspiration of love is still in their mind.
In addition, the allusion of river, in my pinion, it’s allusion to extrication. Because she dies in the river, the river seems to be a curse for the Lady of Shalott. However, she doesn’t need to be depressed anymore, and she is free. Similarly, the river for Yvette is also extrication. The torrential river kills her grandmother, who is the one always obstructs Yvette’s freedom. Through the flood, Yvette meets the gipsy.
Lawrence uses the Lady of Shalott to show up how Yvette suffers in a no free spirit situation just like the Lady of Shalott. Moreover, through the allusion, Lawrence points out that it’s hollow to restrain women’s behavior to be virgin because the inner thought is still out o f the norm, but just a unfair and false ethical code.
1)
The Lady of Shalott served as a comparison to the protagonist, Yvette in this story, and they share many similarities. They both met someone who has some kind of charm that makes them want to break through their current shackle. The Lady of Shalott heard Lancelot singing “Tirra-lirra” outside her window and saw his image reflected in the mirror (she can only see the outside world through the mirror, it is the only connection that she had with the outside world), though she knew that she was cursed and could never leave her room, she could not help but deeply attracted by Lancelot and walked out of her room. Yvette was regarded as a good girl comes from a religious and prestigious family; however, she fell deeply for a wild and mysterious gypsy man, who can never be approved by her family or the society. Thus, they both take the risk to pursue the men that they desire, but both of them did not end up being with the men.
Mirror and water also play the important roles in both of their stories. When the Lady of Shalott saw Lancelot through her mirror, she decided that she would go after him. Nevertheless, when she left her room, the mirror broke which symbolized that her life was like the mirror which was breaking. When Yvette was looking at her new dress through the mirrors, she “sent the second mirror, that she had perched carelessly on the piano, sliding with a rattle to the floor”. Though the mirror did not broke, she was still chided by her aunt and Granny because they could not stand to have any mirror broken in “this house” which showed that they were extremely superstitious and this made Yvette feel intolerable and deepened her repulsiveness toward her family. After the Lady of Shalott ran out of her room, she knew that her time was burning out, so she decided to take on a boat and carried by the river to the downstream where Lancelot can see her, so her life elapsed little by little on that boat drifting downstream. When the Gipsy came to tell Yvette that he was leaving, the flood suddenly encroached on their town. The Gipsy helped Yvette to get through the invasion of the flood and they got very close during this calamity. However, in the end, the Gipsy still left Yvette, and he left a message for her with his name on it which killed off the romantic and mysterious fantasy that Yvette had toward him.
1) The story of the Lady of Shalott is used as an intertextul allusion in The Virgin and the Gipsy. What are the implications and significance of this citation?
As an allusion in the Virgin and the Gipsy, the story of the lady of Shalott shares lots of similarities. Especially, the protagonists and themes have many things in common. To begin with, the main character of the story of the lady of Shalott, Elaine was alone imprisoned in the tower. The only thing she could do was weaved a magic web without looking directly out at the world. Instead, she looked into a mirror which reflected the outside world.
Yvette, who was the protagonist of the Virgin and the Gipsy has similar situation. She lived in the circumstance which “seemed ugly, and almost sordid, with the dank air of that middle-class, degenerated comfort has ceased to be comfortable and has turned stuffy, unclean.”(p.13) Besides, the family members were all inert and dreadful. Take Granny and the rector for example. Granny, the Mater, was “physically vulgar, clever old bodies who had got her own way all her life by buttering the weakness of her men-folk.”(p.5) And father, the rector, was “getting heavy and inert, sitting in his study all day, never taking exercise.”(p.14) Yvette felt she could not breathe in the house. The house, Granny, father, aunt and uncle all made her feel smothery.
In addition, lady of Shalott was cursed that the only place she could stay was the tower. She would die if she disobeyed it.
For Yvette, she was also in a difficult position. “Yvette seemed always to imagine that someone would come along singing Tirra-lirra! or something equally intelligent, by the river.”(p.62) She was described as “a tall young creature with fresh, sensitive faces and bobbed hair and young-manly, deuce-take-it manners.”(p.11) These personalities were totally the opposite of the family that she was going back.
Moreover, lady of Shalott was falling in love with Sir Lancelot who rode past. Then, she stopped weaving and tried to pursue her love. However, she did not make it.
The eye contact between the Gipsy and Yvette made her feel “something hard inside her met his stare. But the surface of her body seemed to turn to water…”(p.40) The Gipsy sparked up the fire, good fire, in Yvette’s mind.
In the end, both of the stories of the lady of Shalott and the Virgin of the Gipsy bring out the same theme, and that is to break out the confinement. Lady of Shalott and Yvette are all imprisoned and confined. However, they both try to break out the confinement to pursue what they really long for.
In The Virgin and the Gipsy, Yvette is like the Lady of Shalott who is imprisoned in a place where she has to stay. She feels repressed in the family like the Lady of Shalott in her room, and hope one day she can escape. However, the existence of the Gipsy gives Yvette an imagination of romance because she doesn’t want this kind of “save” life anymore. The Lady of Shalott is the connotation of Yvette’s life. As the lady of Shalott, Yvette also wants to escape her home and pursue something meaningful and romantic in her life. The metaphor of the lady of Shaloot can express Yvette’s desire and fantasy to the Gipsy who gives Yvette an image of freedom. She hopes that the Gipsy can take her away form this boring life. What’s more, the usage of intertextul allusion makes the theme in The Virgin and Gipsy can be understood clearer, and also foretell the end of the story. In the end of The Virgin and the Gipsy, she got a name of the gipsy. In Yvette’s mind, the fantasy suddenly disappeared and died. In some ways, it is the same tragic ending as the Lady of Shalott, however, although the ending in The Lady of Shalott is that she had to die as the truth in The Virgin and the Gipsy is that Yvette has to go back to the reality. Both of they are brave enough to break though the rule and follow their desire to pursue what they really want.
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1)
In the ballad by Lord Tennyson, the world what the Lady of Shalott perceives, and what projects in her eyes, is but a reflection of a mirror – she will sacrifice her life if she ever look out of the window. She is cursed. She has to weave the reflection of the mirror into a tapestry, lonely, upon a tower.
In the stone house by the river Papple, Yvette also finds out that this so-called home is rather something like a cage or prison, or even a sewerage sort of place, for its suffocating air, and its malicious family member. As Yvette says, “If gipsies had no bathrooms, at least they had no sewerage. There was fresh air. In the rectory there was never fresh air. And in the souls of the people, the air was stale till it stank.”
The longing for the outside world forms a poetic intertextul allusion between the Lady of Shalott and Yvette: “At the first landing, she stood as she nearly always did, to gaze through the window that looked to the road and the bridge. Like the Lady of Shalott, she seemed always to imagine someone would come along singing Tirra-lirra! or something equally intelligent, by the river.” They are longing for seeing what is real. In this allusion, to see the world through a mirror is only when the souls are cursed and imprisoned. The Lady of Shalott is cursed not to look out of the window, so will the Mater and Aunt Cissie avoid mirror from being broke. The mirror is the authority and curse that makes one unable to see things in one’s own perception. So as for someone who breaks the taboo like breaks a mirror, the Mater always calls Yvette’s mother as She-who-was-Cynthia. The Lady of Shalott looked out of the window when she saw Lancelot is passing by, singing Tirra-lirra. The encounter of the gipsy man, also triggers Yvette’s curiosity of sex and her pursuit of freedom.
1) The story of the Lady of Shalott is used as an intertextul allusion in The Virgin and the Gipsy. What are the implications and significance of this citation?
The Lady of Shalott is a story about a girl who was forced to lived in a tower of an island castle and be cursed, so she wasn’t allowed to look outside of the window and she had to weave a magic wed all day long. While comparing the Lady of Shalott to Yvette in The Virgin and the Gipsy, there are some similarities between them. Yvette was also stuck in the ugly small stone house of the rector. She had to lived there with the Granny and Aunt Cissie who were making her feel stifled like a curse for her. She felt very awful to live in the house and the society which limit her with morality. She saw herself as a moral-unbeliever.
Besides, after Yvette met the gipsy man, she tried to run away from the house and the people there. The same of the Lady of Shalott, she leaved the tower after she saw the Knight, Lancelot. They both tried to fight with their fate for the man they love and Yvette wanted to find the meaning of love. However, finally the curse worked on the Lady of Shalott and she died on the boat before she met Lancelot, and Yvette and the gipsy man separated in a flood.
The Lady of Shalott is a very significance citation in The Virgin and the Gipsy. She is the reflection of the protagonist, Yvette, and shares many similarities with her. The Lady of Shalott is a woman who has been put and isolated the in a tower and can never look out or there will be curse on her. The citation of The Lady of Shalott evidently indicates the situation of Yvette. Yvette, though not being told not to go out, is still mentally isolated. She can not lead a life she longs for, or fall in love with the person she loves. The granny has an image of witch. She is just like the one who gives Yvette “curse.” Yvette is always looking at the window, like The Lady of Shalott, expecting the chance to change her life or take her far away to escape the somberness, loneness of the house. “She always expected something to come down the slant of the road from Papplewick, and she always lingered at the landing window.” The Lady of Shalott finally met the person who fascinates her a lot. We know that she decided to escape from the tower, and then she died of the curse. Yvette is just the same. She has waited for the Gipsy man’s coming, the debonair, suave, and dashing gipsy man. This is a foreshadowing of Yvette’s ending. She feels the power of the curse, the flood. Though she did not die of it, she is still drew back to the reality when she knew that the gipsy man’s name.
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I think the story of the Lady of Shalott used as an intertextul allusion in The Virgin and the Gipsy is to compare with the story of Yvette. The Lady of Shalott is closed in the tower and she is cursed that she will die if she looks out to see the world.
Later, she is fascinated by Sir Lancelot riding on the horse, and then she knows her time as soon as looking out to see him. However, she still decides to see Sir Lancelot in a boat. In the end, the Lady of Shalott dies on the river and Sir Lancelot blesses her daring love. On the other hand, Yvette is limited in the traditional family. And she knows that she will be killed by this family if she is wild and selfish as her mother. Later, she is fascinated by the gipsy driving a cart. Generally speaking, the bourgeoisie thinks the gipsy is rank. However, Yvette wishes that “she were a gipsy.” Knowing her fate, so does the Lady of Shalott, Yvette chooses to pursue her love for the gipsy. During the flood, Yvette shares her love with the gipsy; even so, the gipsy goes away. Although her love is gone, Yvette knows that she has more power to fight against her fate.
In addition to some similarities between the two stories, the symbols of the mirror and the river also imply something significant. In the story of the Lady of Shalott, the shatters of mirror mean not only that the Lady of Shalott will die but also that the Lady of Shalott will go out to embrace her own life because she dares to break her existence in the tower. In The Virgin and the Gipsy, we can see how traditional Granny is and what a firm conservatism is in this family as Granny shouted that “don’t break it in this house, wherever it came from.” Here mirror symbolizes the tradition that Yvette itches to break. As to the symbol of the river, I think the river gives the Lady of Shalott and Yvette new life. Although the Lady of Shalott dies on the river, she is free now. Likewise, after the flood, Yvette could not seize her love but she has more courage to seize her life.
In The Virgin and the Gipsy, the story of the Lady of Shalott is mentioned when Yvette looking at the river. The allusion has parallel significance between the Lady of Shalott and Yvette.
The Lady of Shalott is a lady who lives in a tall tower which near the river which flows to Camelot. She has been cursed that she couldn’t go outside the castle or she would die. The Lady of Shalott weaves the world’s view by seeing the reflection in a mirror. However, one day she sees Sir Lancelot in the mirror, stopping weaving, and then she looks outside the window for being attracted by him. The curse on her comes true. The Lady of Shalott leaves her tower and finds a boat. She boards the boat. And it floats to Camelot. She dies before arrival to Camelot.
This allusion appears when Yvette thinks that “she seemed always to imagine that someone would come along singing Tirra-lirra or something equally intelligent, by the river.” In the same surrounding, the lady is imprisoned near the river which flows to Camelot. The rector’s house is also near the river Papple. Yvette herself is like the Lady of Shalott who is imprisoned in a tower, she is immured in her house which represents for the middle class. The society makes her limit in the place of the middle class, the rules and the order, without freedom. Both of them encounter the men, Sir Lancelot and the Gipsy man. For Yvette, the image of Sir Lancelot is the Gipsy man, who takes her outside the house, the tower, the limited place. And the curse of the Lady of Shalott has also significance with the river that in the end there is a flood.
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The significance of “The virgin and the Gipsy” is to use the the Lady of Shalott as the allusion is to tell the readers that both Yevette and Elaime has the same kind of wish- to break the limitation of imprisoning by the circumstances that they don’t like.
The protagonist of “The virgin and the Gipsy” is Yvette, and she lived with Granny and Aunt Cissie in the ugly stone house by the river Papple. Her life was dull and boring; she doesn’t like their superstitions because Granny and Aunt Cissie would not allow anyone break any mirror in this house to follow the rule Mater said: “There shall be no mirrors broken in this house” .We can see Yvette act with exceptional caut when she moves the second mirror from the text “ She sent the second mirror, that she had perched carelessly on the piano, sliding with a rattle to the floor.”
In “The virgin and the Gipsy” we can see the description of them individually. Granny described that “Her face like a mask that hid something stony,relentless,her mind would flicker awake, and with her insatiable greed for life, other people’s life… she was like the old toad which Yvette had watched…” “Her father also a conservative rector and described as “He was getting heavy and inert, sitting in his study all day, never taking exercise.” And for so many reasons, Yvette is not satisfied with her life and wants to rebel. She think of the Lady of Shalott , hoping someone like Lancelot could emerge to her life; then, she will give up everything she had to follow him.
The similarities between the Lady of Shalott and “The virgin and the Gipsy” are delicate. Both Yvette and Elaime feels isolated and imprisoned, they are unhappy and there is something that could make them summon their courage to break the circumstances. Just like Yvette, Elaime feels depressed since everyday she could do is weaving and weaving all day long from what she sees in the reflection of the mirror in the tower. She was locked by the spell. If she leaves the room, the spell will effect and make her die. Then, suddenly, Lancelot appeared so Elaime is in love with him and steps out of the room then she dies. Like what Elaime experienced, Yvette met the Gipsy man who is so wild and mysterious, so attracts her although she knows that there is some difference between the Gipsy and her. Then when the flood submerges the town, they became imitate during the catastrophe. However, in “The virgin and the Gipsy” Yvette still could not stay with the Gipsy man just like the allusion the Lady of Shallot, both ends with tragedy. Elaime dies and Yvette’s fancy breaks and she has to go back to face the reality.
The mirror in “The virgin and the Gipsy” is just like the confinement that constrains not only Elaime, but everyone. Elaime knows that the mirror is there all the time, she has to rely on it to see what happened outside. She can not know things happening outside expect watching the reflection of the mirror, she always knows this but till she falls in love with Lancelot she dares to take the price of leaving the room.
In Victorian period, women are separated from the outside world so they feel isolated and lonely. They are used to be protected; nevertheless, when they begin to be aware of what is the thing they really want, they still choose to stay in old rules as they are afraid to take the outcome in the future. So, I think this is the reason why D. H. Lawrence arranges the role of Yvette’s mom, Cynthia in this story. Her description is “She had made a great glow, a flaw of life, like a swift and dangerous sun in the home, forever coming and going.”, not like the typical mother. But, she is undoubtedly a new woman who dares to break the old rules.
I’d like to answer the first question. For Yvette her situation is like the Lady of Shalott. Both of them are imprisoned in somewhere they are struggling and waiting for a price charming coming to set them free. Yvette is “outstanding” to her family. Everything she does always irritates or seems to be strange in the family. Granny, Aunt Cissie, and her father are the factors that cause her to feel oppressed. In the context it says “she stood as she nearly always did.” With the word “always” and “did” we can predict how much desire she wants to get out of her family. The image of looking through the window shows the idea of escape. Only if you expect or admire the life outdoors, one can keep watching things through windows. That “nerves” here the author uses it continuously support some information about Yvette’s situation at home that always gets on her nerves. The allusion the Lady of Shalott implies us that Yvette needs a man to redeem her from isolation. The sound of Tirra-lirra can somehow affect Yvette for the temple of Tirrra-lirra is just like the sound of heart beating. With the element of the sound it seems that we can hear how nervous Yvette is as if she could see the one she looks forward to. Finally, the image of river is quite significant in the context of The Virgin of the Gipsy. In the story, Yvette gets a new life after the flood of a river. River can purify one and after one immerse him/herself in the river it can also mean a new birth. The blood Yvette has can be purified after the flood. She-who-was-Cynthia, Mater, or the rector, etc seems to have nothing to do with her. Indeed, she was in a dilemma as to which side she needs to choose—life unbelievers like her father or moral unbelievers like her mother.
The story of the Lady of Shalott is used as an epitome and a metaphor of Yvette’s situation, life and her mind. From the Lady of Shalott, we can see some implications and symbols for Yvette from the similarities they share. First, they are both confined by “curses.” The Lady of Shalott is cursed and forced not to leave the castle for all of her life, and she can only weave what she sees about the outside world through the reflections of the mirror. In other words, she’s confined both psychically and spiritually because imprisoning her also means to shut down and to kill off her mind of desire and imagination. Even she can see the world, she’s not allowed to desire and to reach the world. And on Yvette, we can see the similar situation. I think there are two “curses” of confinements on her. Although she’s not grounded or restricted in movements, the values, atmosphere, morals, and dull conventions of her family are all fetters and cangues on her free spirit. Her inert and spiritual paralysis father, controlled by her dominant Granny, could only conduct “a certain furtive passion.” And the whole family is full of an “atmosphere of cunning self-sanctification and of unmentionability” (7), which is an oppression on her primitive untamed mind. Besides, “she was born inside the pale. And she liked comfort, and a certain prestige” (120). She herself has some kind confinements on herself too. All these imprisoning situations are just like “curses” that Yvette hates and needs to break. The lines describing the allusion─ Yvette stands at the first landing, gazing through the window and imagining─ reveal that she’s trapped and longs to be free. As a result, when someone special outside their worlds appears, it’s an irresistible attraction that arouses their desire of freedom. When the Lady of Shalott hears Lancelot singing Tirra-lirra, she recklessly follows her most primitive desire and pursues the freedom and relief of her mind instead of continuing repressing herself for the rational and dead life. And for Yvette, the gipsy is the one to open the window for her and to trigger her to listen for her heart, her desire─ the “the voice of the water,” just like the Tirra-lirra to the Lady of Shalott.
The other similarity is the symbol of the mirror. I think mirror is an object that always reminds people to be cautious of their appearances and behaviors. When one stands in front of a mirror, it seems s/he is just locked in the frame of the mirror, and always has to examine him or herself. Therefore, the symbol of mirrors is also the confinement, which both the protagonists want to break through. When the Lady of Shalott finally chases for Lancelot, the mirror shatters with the cursed removed, and she dies with freedom. And in the novel, Yvette’s dropping of the mirror can be read as an implication that she wants to break the moral confinement because for the Mater and Aunt Cissie, breaking the mirrors means breaking the rules, violating the moralities, breaking down the established stiff conventions, and also means to challenge and threaten the Mater’s authority.
The third element is the image of the water (the river and the flood). I think water represents the emotions and desire of the two characters. It is a strength that can lead them to win their freedom. Although the Lady of Shalott dies for the curse, at last her soul gets freedom and mercy when the boat drifts downstream and brings her to her desire, Lancelot. In the novel, the flood bursts just like the emotions explodes after being oppressed for a long time. It’s also implies the desire of Yvette, making her and the gipsy experience the romantic and instinctive world’s-end night. Besides, at last the flood drowning the Mater also seems to indicate that the mental puritanism cannot oppress the primitive and wild sensuality forever.
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