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| Lancelot at some points in the story |
Friday, March 27, 2020
Its not cool to be wounded
I felt that the purpose of this story was to emphasis the heroics and masculinity of Lancelot. To explain, there are several times in this story in which Lancelot is fighting and almost bleeding to death during battle. For example, the story says that "...if I had earned your praise, I have earned it hardly, for I am so wounded that I doubt I shall live...I am more in need of repose than honor..." (461). This is meant to show how brave and tough he is so that the readers can get more behind the idea of him. They also added a sprinkle of humbleness for good measure. However, while much of this story is trying to get the reader to enjoy the presence of him, they make some odd creative choices at times. Lancelot refuses to love Guinevere and also kind of kills her. I believe this is supposed to be an odd way of showing that Lancelot is cool since it adds a layer of tragedy and complexity to him.
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ReplyDeleteack! I deleted my comment. Let me try again...
ReplyDeleteAre you maybe confused about Guinevere vs Elaine?
Also, I'd be curious what you think we are supposed to take away from this story. What lesson is there to be learned from Lancelot - both his abilities on the battlefield and the huge impression he makes on Elaine (even though he's not trying to !)? What, if anything, can this teach us about how we live our own lives?
If this story is supposed to pushed his masculinity and heroics forward, why did Elaine die? And why was he even fighting in the first place? yes, his actions maybe could be considered heroic, but when you think about it, they're really not? he's fighting his OWN kingdom for pete's sake? and he leads on a very virtuous girl; he kind of kills her?? Very weird story.
ReplyDeleteI'm with Abbey on this one, how could THIS story out of all the Lancelot stories be the one to highlight Lancelot's heroics? Besides harming the most knights in the tournament, I don't see anything that shows the brave, courageous side of our "protagonist." I'll agree with a point of yours though, this IS a tragedy of some sort...
ReplyDeleteBrave or courageous would be the wrong words for it. If I had to redo it, I would say that the writer was attempting to give some wider appeal to Lancelot. Could be wrong, but its a theory I have.
DeleteI agree with the others. I don't believe Lancelot is showing bravery by hiding his identity and fighting his own kingdom. I do agree with your point that Lancelot indirectly killed Elaine and that does create the aspect of tragedy that you mentioned.
ReplyDeleteMaybe I chose the wrong words here. I was more trying to get across that I think the author is trying gas Lancelot up a lot. Calling him a hero would inaccurate.
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