Le Morte d’Arthur is a book written by Thomas Malory. Le Morte d’Arthur takes place in England during the Middle Ages. Le Morte d’Arthur is a book about King Arthur and his life. King Arthur's father went undercover and had a baby with Igraine. However, Uther later sent Arthur to live with Sir Ector. When King Uther died, there was no one else to replace him. King Arthur pulled out a sword that no one else could pull out. When you pulled this sword out, you would be made king. However, all the other kings didn’t like this. King Arthur's reign first began with a war between 12 northern kings. Arthur marries Gwynevere to solidify his reign. Arthur's knights began a quest to find the holy grail, which contains some sort of power. However, only the holiest and pure are able to see it, Percival, Galahad, and Sir Bors. Lancelot, the best knight in the world, was discovered having an affair with Gwynevere. They were caught by Mordred, Arthur's son. Mordred later forged letters saying that Arthur was dead and decided to take over the kingdom. At this point, King Arthur was fighting Lancelot and had to postpone it in order to fight Mordred. In this battle, they both ended up dying. During the story, there were three main themes shown, knights of the round table, betrayal, and revenge.
The Knights of the Round Table were the highest honor that could be awarded to someone. The Knights of the Round Table had a giant table that could seat more than a hundred people. There were many people who wanted a seat at the table; however, only the best knights were allowed a seat. The knights at the round table were knights who had the highest amount of chivalry and loyalty. Like the name suggests, the table was round. This symbolizes that all the knights that sat at the round table were equal and had no ranks among themselves. Unlike the social hierarchy that was set in place outside of the table, The holy grail only allowed certain people to see it. The knights had to be the holiest and purest. Only three knights were able to see the holy grail. These knights were Galahad, Percival, and Sir Bors. The holy grail often provided magical healing powers or eternal youth. Both of these qualities are helpful to any knight. The spirit of a knight strongly determines how well they will do as a knight and how much they are liked by the people. For example, Lancelot, one of the most popular and handsome knights, had qualities like perseverance, chivalry, smarts, and bravery. Not everyone is able to be a successful knight, as many people know.
Betrayal is commonly seen throughout the story and isn’t something that is easy to get over.
The main betrayal shown in the story is when Gwynevere and Lancelot are caught having an affair together. Gwynevere and Lancelot had to choose between acting on their own desires or their loyalty to the king. When the betrayal of Lancelot and Gwynevere was leaked. The consequences of their actions were much more severe than they thought they would be. Gwynevere was sent to be burned at the stake, however, Lancelot rescued her. Killing both Gaheris and Gareth on accident, causing his former friend Gawine to turn his back on him. Blaming herself for the fall of the kingdom and the death of Arthur, Gwynevere went to a nunnery, and Lamcelot followed suit. Morgan le Fey was blinded by her need to get revenge on King Arthur, so she ended up replacing his sword with a fake one. She also set up a duel with Arthur, so he was almost guaranteed to die.
Revenge is what drove the blot and happened because of betrayal. Queen Margawse seduced King Arthur in order to get revenge on her mother. Queen Margawse gave birth to Mordred, which is the child Merlin prophesied would kill King Arthur. Mordred did end up killing Arthur, which led to the fall of the kingdom. When King Pellinore killed King Lot. King Lot's son, Gawine, got angry and decided to take revenge on King Pellinore, who killed him. Gawine had a vengeful nature, and this caused him to go so far as to take revenge on Pellinore’s son. The situation escalated when an apple meant for Gawine poisoned another knight. Another time when we see Gawines vengeful nature is when Lancelot accidentally kills two of Gawines brothers. Gawine swears on an oath that he will never forgive Lancelot unless one of them has died. Gawine went as far as to turn his back on a former friend and swear an oath. The main contributor to getting revenge on King Arthur was Morgan le Fey. She got the Excalibur sword and replaced King Arthur's sword with a fake. This allowed more people to kill Arthur because, without the real excalibur, Arthur would take a couple hits. Morgan le Fey also set up a duel between Accalon and Arthur. At first, it looked like Accalon would win, until he accidentally dropped Excalibur and Arthur picked it up. There, Accalon revealed Morgan le Fey’s plan to kill Arthur.
In conclusion, Le Morte d’Arthur is a story that tells the story of Arthur's death. In doing so, Malory provided three important themes, revenge, betrayal, and the Knights of the Round Table. These three themes help us understand the knights that were in the story. The story started out because King Uther decided to have a child with someone who was already taken. This made things worse for his child because his half siblings didn’t like them. Two of the half siblings had planned a lot for their revenge on the child. That child was King Arthur. This is only one example of how the story progressed because one character got revenge on another. Betrayal is something that happened that helped the story progress. All the betrayal that was happening caused a bunch of people to get revenge on each other. This revenge turned into more betrayal, which repeated the cycle over and over again until they had all made peace or died. The Knights of the Round Table played a significant role in this story because it was the table that all knights wanted to get into. It signified that your abilities and attitude as a knight were among the greatest in the empire. It was something that all those felt proud to be apart of.
Commentaires