Before we lose ourselves entirely in the world of Mallory I wanted to mention a couple of thoughts I had about Silence that tie in with the Green Knight/ Wife of Bath as well.
Essentially, we talked over, around, and through female agency a lot two Mondays ago (and I'm sure it came up last Monday as well!) but one of the most interesting things about Silence is that to ensure female security they created a super male character... who was actually female. Since there was no male champion (as there supposedly would have been in Arthurian times? unclear about this) to fight against the injustice the King's rash decision caused women of the kingdom, a crazed plot was formed in order to rectify this... which inadvertently created the only singular figure in whom feminine justice could be brought about.
I mean feminine justice in two ways. First, the obvious, is justice for women. Unless we tap into our latent (or not so latent) medieval mindset it's impossible to see how the two sisters are to blame for two knights being morons, but even if they were dreadful creatures the kings law affected all women ill. A champion of their cause was needed so that a woman wouldn't become a burden to her family/ state or risk being cast aside (thus leading to extremes such as starvation, prostitution, the modern world...) when she did not inherit land. Obviously this only applied to the aristocratic women, but in our works that's all we have so we're going with it. But no such champion existed under this almost Arthurian king. There was no Gawain to win a tournament for them, no Kay to tell the king off, and the queen seemed less than interested in the plight of her fellow female (according to our text, she was preoccupied) and so women were left to the deranged ideas of their fathers. However, Silence's father not only creates a super knight, he accidentally creates the avenger of women's justice. She got bit by the knighthood spider to right the wrong (I’m mixing my superhero metaphors but just go with it). It's deeply unsatisfying that she simply hands in her sword and takes up knitting at the end of the poem, yet narratively it is not. Silence had accomplished what she was created to do. Even if that creation was unintentional on the part of her father, it is perfectly balanced and lovely if you look at the story from a narrative standpoint. How fun that the disinherited one, the powerless woman, brings about inheritance not only for herself (her fathers plan) but for her whole country?!
The second feminine justice is where Gawain and the Green Knight and Chaucer (huzzah!) enter the discussion. The Wife of Bath's Tale proves there was a consciousness of, if not an actual case, feminine justice in this period. What would a woman do to a man she knew was a rapist if she had power? How far would a woman do to right a wrong that wasn't done to her personally? Without actually turning Guinevere and her women into Harpies, Chaucer gives them a chance to participate in the court of Arthur rationally (to an extent). Now we have Morgan le Fay (sassy name right?) trying to enact what she sees as justice and it comes across as essentially just bat shit crazy. She claims to have been wronged and is being her own champion. Gawain is often the instrument of justice for women in Arthurian literature. So what happens when he is in a text, resisting temptation from a woman, and being tortured by another, in the name of feminine justice?
Just a really long, slightly rambling thought/ query!
I would have to agree with most of the points you bring up Hannah. However I think I have to stop a little short of saying it all comes down to feminine justice. In the case of Silence and the Wife of Bath-justice does exist-but is it actually feminine in its entirety? Silence's father sees justice for his daughter and the issue of inheritance by forcing her to grow up as a male. I understand she questions it herself in her teenage years but she never actually breaks the barrier until she was outed. So where exactly is the justice? Especially since she then looses her voice (something she had as a "male" ) and is essentially forced into marrying the king?
ReplyDeleteSecondly with the Wife of Bath. Sovereignty is what all women want and the young knight discovers that. Yet, once again, as soon as the women have what they want, it is given up in order to become submissive to the knights desires. So once again where is the feminine justice?
Maybe I am a total cynic so who knows???
Hannah, I agree with you. By the way, I have always wondered about Chaucer and his attitude towards women. If the Wife is his spokesperson, as she appears to be, then Chaucer is pointing fingers at the male-dominated society of the period in both the Prologue, and the Tale which I talked about in class. Also, the rapist knight is punished in a court of women, not men, to show the power of the women. Recently, I read a number of social comments regarding medieval women and their position in society, and it seems that women were pressing for more autonomy. Silence could, in my opinion, be read as a modern day story in which the female protagonist is able to outwit the male majority.
ReplyDeleteThe case of the Wife of Bath's Tale invites a measure of cynicism, given that the rapist knight finishes up with a male fantasy of a young, beautiful, obedient wife. So much for women's sovereignty! Of course, the situation, as always in The Canterbury Tales, is complicated by the dramatic fiction that places this tale in the mouth of the Wife of Bath, whose character is wonderfully contradictory...but that's a conversation for another class.
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