Chain
The chain as an image of binding attachment - a partner or relationship wrapping around the speaker, holding her in place. Operates in dual registers: at its destructive pole, the chain immobilises and oppresses (Ophelia 'chained' to a love that destroys her); at its loving pole, the chain figures protective wrapping (a partner who binds himself around the speaker as rescue). Distinct from Cage (industry/display confinement) and Prison / Escape (relationship-as-incarceration-place) in that the chain is worn or wrapped on the body itself rather than imposed by an external architecture.
The chain marks the spectrum from coercive constraint to chosen entanglement. In Taylor's writing it can be both the destructive bond that traps Ophelia and the loving wrap that saves her - the image holds both registers at once, and the surrounding lyric tells the reader which is meant.
Appears in 1 song
“You wrap around me like a chain, a crown, a vine”
The chain operates in two registers within the lyric's triple list. The Ophelia register: love 'chained' her down, the bond between her and Hamlet became the binding that constrained her and ultimately killed her. The Travis register: the partner now wraps around the speaker like a chain, the same image of binding, inverted to a rescue. The chain is the wrap that holds without harming, the opposite of Ophelia's experience.