The way in which amorphous female identities overlap and echo each other in Gawain and the Green Knight, The Wife of Bath's Tale, and La Morte D'Arthur may seem to represent the ambiguity of distinctive characters. female personalities in novels beyond their status as ideological representations or their roles in the story of the male hero. In these texts, however, the challenges that women pose to the hero imply that the men depicted here are pawns in a larger scheme rather than equals in any battle of the sexes, and the overlapping female identities are the result of their incomprehension. this broader feminine context. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned"?Get the original essay Geraldine Heng offers this alternative context as a truly second "female text" that can be found where the logic of the male-centered narrative on Gawain fails, as in the seemingly arbitrary rules of Morgan La Fey's trading game. What initially resembles Gawain's story, in which the women serve only as representations of his motivations, becomes a struggle for him "in the psychomania of a female narrative" that he does not understand. He first carries the Virgin as a talisman on his shield, making her an object to inspire him, but during the final confrontation with Morgan, the Virgin claims "hir kny3t" (1769) from the witch, reversing the roles active and passive. they had done it. This passage also specifies that the struggle pits holy and pagan representatives (one part of Christian iconography, the other called "goddess"), and that various female roles are also compared by the text on numerous occasions. Morgan's plan is ultimately antagonistic towards Guinevere, but the Lady she uses as a "double ventriloquist" is also taken in parallel with the Queen. Guinevere is positioned near Gawain in court (109) in a scene very similar to her later seat near the Lady (1003), and the description of the Lady as "wener þen Wenore" evokes Guinevere's name so unmistakably that Griffith proposed that the Lady is a second, "false Guinevere" herself. Paul Battles analyzed how editors altered "þa3 I was burde bry3test, þe burde in mynde hade" (1283) or "Though I was the fairest of ladies, thought the lady", changing "I" to “ho” and changing the second “burden” to “burne”, so that the first meeting between Gawain and the Lady remains entirely from his point of view. This choice not only actively marginalizes a female perspective, but also prevents a meaningful perspective. moment of cross-knowledge, as the passage continues by mentioning the details of the Green Knight's challenge, which the Lady should not know. This moment hints at the connection between the Lady and Morgan that must have existed, and a larger female conspiracy beyond that. Gawain. The Lady and Morgan are brought into a physical comparison in lines 950-69, as one is fresh and the other withered in equal amounts ("Car if þe 3onge watz 3ep, 3ol3e watz þat oþer") and this contrast is represented structurally by the equal balance of lines describing one or the other. Despite these opposing appearances, their roles overlap through shifts in power, as the only female character who speaks, the Lady, proves to be an instrument of Morgan's wishes. Their respective roles in the narrative, within society's accepted justice system and on the margins, blur so that the purpose of Gawain's challenge itself is confused by the intertwined ideological representations. Some critics have decided that allChaucer's characters serve more to illustrate ideologies and moral positions, than as recreations of a realistic interiority. DW Robertson imposed the same view on the Wife of Bath in particular, stating that "Alisoun of Bath is not a 'character' in the modern sense at all, but an elaborate iconographic figure designed to show the multiple implications of an attitude. In "Can We Trust the Wife of Bath?", however, David Parker argues that she is written as a fallible person who also represents a moral stance, and that there are obvious contradictions in her character that prove without doubt she is the most human of all. Chaucer's Pilgrims. Hers is the longest prologue of all the tales, allowing for disparities such as her fifth husband initially being called "for me the mooste shrew" (505) and later kind enough to give her "governance of the house and from the world” (814). ). Since she is not simply the representation of a moral argument, but rather a defined character, the reason for the parallels between her and the female characters in her tale cannot be as simple as the fact that the women are indistinguishable at first glance. beyond their societal roles. The queen issuing a challenge to the knight reflects the narrator himself challenging the male listeners, as does the witch's conclusion that she can be "good and trewe" (1243) as a wife if she is given governance in the marriage echoes the denouement of the Prologue, that Alisoun was “kynde…and also trewe” (823-5), with the necessary caveat “he was also to me”. Just as the witch consciously tricks the knight into teaching her a lesson by disguising herself, Alisoun tricks her audience only by revealing the information about her true appearance as the knight learns about it rather than maintaining the style chatty which leads to lengthy references to Ovid. Foreshadowing the character's mutability in the service of the lesson, the witch had previously appeared in the form of twenty-four dancing maidens, and her approach to them is described in the phrase "towards the one who daunce hedrow ful yerne" (993). as impatient, contrasting with the revulsion he felt towards the old hag in the phrase “a more infamous man cannot imagine” (999). A man's actions, hypothetical or literal, are emphasized in the descriptions of these female apparitions, as how a man may choose to act towards them apparently decides their importance. This accentuation of his actions demonstrates his path towards choosing a lack of action in the end and placing him under the “governance” of his wife. But the transformation of women already suggests a “governance” of nature and a flexibility of roles that go beyond her knowledge. Seductive maidens in a forest play a different traditional role in chivalric tales (that of tempting the knight) than an old hag representing wisdom, and the woman's active choice to embody both in addition to her actual appearance to teach a lesson to the knight is bound. she has Alisoun as storyteller. They both challenge him to discover what knowledge they already possess by confronting him with different overlapping female forms. In Morte D'Arthur, Corbin's Elaine deliberately disguises herself as Guinevere, in a deliberately confusing seduction similar to the deception of Gawain's Morgan la Fey using the courtly role of the Lady. Because of this deception, Elaine encompasses both the typical female role in romances, the beautiful queen representing ideal Christian femininity, and the deceptive enchantment usually associated with marginal and other characters like Morgan le Fey orthe scheming Lady Brisen who deceives Lancelot in this section. Even Elaine's name connects her to another character in Morte D'Arthur, Elaine d'Ascolat, who also loves Lancelot in vain and uses her body to barter with him. 8 Malory allows the reader to sympathize with this more deceptive Elaine by having the offspring of this union be the virtuous Galahad, and by appealing to the reader to understand directly: "It is a great cause that I must love him, for he had my madynhode' (472/11:9). This justification allows for a better understanding of their encounters apart from Lancelot's misunderstanding, and echoes Malory's defense of Guinevere's adultery with Lancelot: "she was a triple lover, and therefore she had a good end" (625/6:25 p.m.). She is also linked by imagery to the dove which welcomes Lancelot at the entrance to the castle of Pelles, as she has "a small golden censer" in her mouth, while she has "a golden vase between her hands” during the first meeting. Being linked to an animal by a symbol of monetary value may seem dehumanizing, but the biblical associations of a dove demonstrate that God and destiny chose her for this fateful union in a manner similar to the Spirit of God landing beneath the shape of a dove on Christ's shoulder. after his baptism to claim him 9 , validating his deception and emotional motivation as part of a larger project. The parallel may also further connect her to Guinevere: Elaine's deception will soon be redeemed by her child, but Guinevere repents of her adultery with the piety that Malory details in later books. While Elaine's plan may echo Uther who previously fathered Arthur by posing as Ygraine's husband. in the first book, the consequences of this coupling undoubtedly remain in the “feminine context” unknown to Lancelot. Elaine's female body transforms again, but this time in the role of mother through pregnancy, which she welcomes and uses to defend herself from her anger ("don't kill me, because I will have a son who will be the noblest knight" in the world": appealing to his desire for an heir to manipulate him), rather than being a woman drawn against her will into a male project aimed at perpetuating his lineage. The female context presents this as another challenge to the man whose plan and outcome are beyond his reach, and although his father knows of the prophecy, Malory emphasizes Elayne's love and the fact that she was “happy” to have him in her bed. prioritize your emotions over thoughts of inheritance. Siobhan M. Wyatt argues that another consequence, his regret over his initial outburst of violence, "prepares him for the necessary penitential atmosphere of the Grail quest." This interpretation may seem to reduce Elaine as a character, but by linking the mutability of her body to the powers of fate that guide the knights' quests, the feminine deception she embodies is again part of a larger pattern that goes beyond the understanding of Lancelot. The female characters overlap and parallel each other. others because of how they are framed by fate or narrative, but also because of their own actions to deliberately deceive and defy men. Rather than undermining their individuality, these connections may therefore portray women's projects as beyond the understanding of the male chivalrous figure, alluding to the second "feminine text" under the conventional gender orientation. Works Cited Geoffrey Chaucer, 'Sir Gawain and the Green Knight', in: The Pearl Scroll Poems, ed. Andrew and Waldron, University of California Press (reprinted 1982) The Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale", in The Riverside.10.