Tennyson's "The Lady of Shalott", is a poem full of symbols of death, isolation, and light. He shows the Lady moving from a spiritual death and isolation to an awakening that is highlighted by his use of light. Ultimately, Tennyson's poem urges its readers to confront life rather than hide from it.
             Tennyson's uses symbols of death to foreshadow what is going to happen to the Lady. The most noticeable symbol of death is the lilies. In Part I the lilies are less emphasized, they just "blow Round an island" (7-8). Towards the end of Part III when the Lady is looking out her window she "saw the water-lily bloom," (111) which is becoming a symbol of life as her death is coming nearer to her. Similarly, the reflection in her mirror used to show "Long fields of barley and of rye," (2) and the "river winding clearly," (31), showing signs of life and harvest. Now the lily has bloomed and,
             In the stormy east-wind straining,
             The pale yellow woods were waning,
             The broad stream in his banks complaining
             Over tower'd Camelot; (118-122)
             giving a dark and dreary setting in comparison to her upcoming death.
             Her once bright Camelot is now a dark dead figure as she soon will be.
             Tennyson's use of dark, dull colors and shadows show the reader that the Lady is unhappy in her isolation. You begin to sense that the Lady is contemplating her choices when she says "I am half sick of shadows" (71). She wants to leave the tower and experience emotions that she can't experience in the castle. When the Lady overlooks "a space of flowers," (16), you get a sense of captive beauty and captive life. Tennyson uses stark lifeless colors like "pale yellow" (119) and "Willows whiten[ing]" (10) to accentuate her captive feeling. The tower is not a prison but more like a cocoon. Like a cocoon
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