The Femme Fatale and Nostalgia Concepts in The

“The Femme Fatale” and “Nostalgia” Concepts in The Lady of Shalott Dr. BETÜL ALTAŞ ELT 208

• Femme fatale characterization of women in the nineteenth century • The femme fatale : a study of the early development of the concept in mid-nineteenth century poetry and painting.

• The woman depicted in The Lady of Shalott is accepted as a femme fatale: a) The woman’s sexuality in The Lady of Shalott by Alfred Tennyson. b) how she was punished by death for acting upon her sexual feelings.

• The Lady of Shalott is depicted as dangerous because of her sexuality. • The 19 th century attitudes towards women’s sexuality were that: a)it should be suppressed b) the ideal woman was pious and a virgin.

• The poem shows the ideal that women should suppress their sexuality: e. g: “A curse is on her if she stay / To look down to Camelot” (135). • The Lady of Shalott was driven by her feelings. • As Camelot is where men are, the “curse” suggests that she cannot act upon her sexual feelings.

• Her crime was to fall in love and she paid with her life. • She was punished for longing for a man, which shows the ideal that women should “wait” while men “seek. ”

• The woman in The Lady of Shalott was turning into a femme fatale by acting on her sexuality, and was punished for it by death.

Nostalgia • Tennyson offers insights into element of escapism in his poetry.

• He provides temporary freedom from worry about a world which is threatened by major social problems such as: hunger disease alcoholism prostitution inhumane living conditions the urban and the industrial revolutions

• Tennyson's romantic narratives provided an escape to a simpler, happier, and more exotic world that is uncontaminated by the problems of modern life.