I've been wanting to dump some additional thoughts here, but was not really checking in that much over the last week. I was thinking about the
The Lady of Shallot in relation to this novel. I don't really know much about the poem, having never read it. However, I read a brief on what it was about.
Quote:
The Lady of Shalott is a magical being who lives alone on an island upstream from King Arthur's Camelot. Her business is to look at the world outside her castle window in a mirror, and to weave what she sees into a tapestry. She is forbidden by the magic to look at the outside world directly. The farmers who live near her island hear her singing and know who she is, but never see her.
The Lady sees ordinary people, loving couples, and knights in pairs reflected in her mirror. 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.
An autumn storm suddenly arises. 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. The locals find the boat and the body, realize who she is, and are saddened. Lancelot prays that God will have mercy on her soul.
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There's some strong parallel's between the poem and the novel; trapped in the house, seeing a different world through the window (from a certain angle), the tapestries etc..., but there were some other elements I thought were interesting to explore.
Firstly, the Lancelot image seems to be an image which haunts Nora. We find out later what the image means, but is the image the real reason why she breaks out from her prison?
Also, the journey of the Lady is meant to be to her death, but here we see something different. I might argue that Nora's life remains "unlived" to some extent. This might be somehow tied in with how she treats memories - everything bad to the dark side of her moon, where it's never really dealt with. Eventually, she really does start to deal with everything, but only when she is back in her prison. I tend to think this suggests an enlightenment that could have come earlier - but that did come.
Nora's attempted suicide is, I guess, the possible ending that was narrowly averted.
The contrast I see is between Nora and Dorothy. Dorothy seems to be a kindred spirit to Nora - trapped in a town, walking as if testing the boundaries of her prison. She does not break out in the same way that Nora does, but although the appearance is that she is happy with her wonderful husband and children, the reality is, at the end, a grim one.
Where was Anderson going with this contrast? Both looked like they started in the same prison. The connection with the poem makes one think that Nora might be leaving to her death - and almost does - but survives. Dorothy, never escapes her prison, but the prison doesn't equate to safety and she ends herself and nearly all of her family.
Did anyone get any of this? I admit that I only considered it once I'd completed the book and looked up the poem. I possibly should have read about that first, but that's me, ignoring the references until later.