Analysis
"The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnelle" was most likely written after Geoffrey Chaucer's "The Wife of Bath's Tale", one of The Canterbury Tales. The differences between the two almost identical plots lead scholars to believe that the poem is a parody of the romantic medieval tradition. The physical characteristics of Dame Ragnelle are exaggerated in comparison to the earlier text. Other characters, such as Sir Gawain and King Arthur, are portrayed as very stylized stereotypes of themselves.
There are many references to aristocratic practices which seem to indicate the author's overall distaste for them. For example, Dame Ragnelle behaves appallingly at the Wedding feast, offending the onlookers; however, because she is now married to a knight, she must be considered better than the population regardless of her atrocious manners. Also, when King Arthur is presented with the challenge by Sir Gromer, it is expected that a knight should take on the mission for him. In other Arthurian stories, the challenge often involves danger or threat to the king, but this instance seems like a silly task to delegate, although the king's life is still at stake if the correct answer is not found. The other most prominent ritual is the spoken oath. The author lends a more approving tone to the notion of using a spoken word as a trustworthy contract. Throughout the story, everyone remains good to their word, and nothing bad comes of it. Perhaps the author used this as a contrast to indicate that, while most social practices were ridiculous, it was appropriate to keep the useful ones.
Another major theme in the poem is the perversion of stereotypical gender roles. Because Dame Ragnelle is a hag with no manners, she falls out of the expected female role. While Gromer is attempting to regain control of the land that he claims should be his, Dame Ragnelle simply circumvents the system. She manipulates Gawain with information in order to marry into a more desired class with a title, at which point she no longer needs to regain her family's land which would have gone straight to the male heir, Gromer, regardless. Ragnelle's power over others and in society generally increase through the poem; some scholars suggest she becomes more masculine in behavior and status as a result. In this reading her production of a male heir symbolizes the final stage or her gender perversion.
Read more about this topic: The Wedding Of Sir Gawain And Dame Ragnelle
Famous quotes containing the word analysis:
“The spider-mind acquires a faculty of memory, and, with it, a singular skill of analysis and synthesis, taking apart and putting together in different relations the meshes of its trap. Man had in the beginning no power of analysis or synthesis approaching that of the spider, or even of the honey-bee; but he had acute sensibility to the higher forces.”
—Henry Brooks Adams (1838–1918)
“Cubism had been an analysis of the object and an attempt to put it before us in its totality; both as analysis and as synthesis, it was a criticism of appearance. Surrealism transmuted the object, and suddenly a canvas became an apparition: a new figuration, a real transfiguration.”
—Octavio Paz (b. 1914)
“Analysis as an instrument of enlightenment and civilization is good, in so far as it shatters absurd convictions, acts as a solvent upon natural prejudices, and undermines authority; good, in other words, in that it sets free, refines, humanizes, makes slaves ripe for freedom. But it is bad, very bad, in so far as it stands in the way of action, cannot shape the vital forces, maims life at its roots. Analysis can be a very unappetizing affair, as much so as death.”
—Thomas Mann (1875–1955)