ENL 159: “Married or Single: Marriage as a Means of Instigating Environmental Change”

Jolene Patricia Brown

Word Count: 3092

Dr. J. Marx

ENL 159: Global City Fiction

12 March 2010

Married or Single:

Marriage as a Means of Instigating Environmental Change

In Zakes Mda’s novel Ways of Dying there is a constant emphasis on the relationships between people, men and women in particular, as being integral to the state of their surroundings. “I believe the salvation of the settlement lies in the hands of women” says Toloki on page 176. This observation is striking because one realizes the disjoint in the balance between the sexes that must be remedied in order to fix the social problems the characters endure. The roles of the sexes are changing dramatically in African cultures and people struggle to care for themselves and their families in an increasing competitive world with less access to ever fewer resources. Since traditional gender roles can no longer supply families with what is needed for survival, a new unification and understanding must occur at a cultural level which can, in turn, affect the whole of society. Personal relationships are an important tool to use in order to bring change to large-scale social networks and by involving oneself in society a person can do more in instigating change than if they were to take a more independent, self-involved approach. This change, however, must begin at the individual level as people must take it upon themselves to become actively involved in their communities and change their own role, setting an example for those around them, much like Noria and Toloki in Ways of Dying.

Toloki begins the novel as an outsider. Though he is well-known in his neighborhood and within funerary circles, he still isolates himself from others because he "decided to follow a new path that involved sacrifice, self-denial and spiritual flagellation" (Mda 119). When he is reunited with Noria, however, he quickly reintegrates himself into society by integrating himself into Noria’s settlement. Toloki was not born in the city, he came into it later after he left his village to escape his father and the ill-treatment of other young people in his village. At first in the city he manages to get a place in a settlement, much like what Noria has, but he ends up leaving it to live in the waiting room at the train station when his house is burned down. Toloki elects at first to deprive himself of interpersonal connections by leaving his village, then by doing the same thing in the city, choosing instead a life of solitude in the name of the “holy” profession of mourning. Life in the settlement is hard, and he leaves because a perceived lack of unity:

It is strange how things don’t change in these shanty towns or squatter camps or informal settlements or whatever you choose to call them...The situation is even more complicated these days...But today people are strongly united. None of these groups are ever able to gain any lasting foothold in the settlements and in the townships. People fight back. (147)

The difference in the current settlement is that people overcome the oppressors, so Toloki no longer needed to “eschew forever the company of men. And of women” (147).

In meeting up with Noria, Toloki slowly reintegrates himself back into society. At the outset of the novel Toloki has no personal connections but by the end of the novel he manages to become, along with Noria, a central figure within the settlement. The example of companionship that Toloki and Noria show to the settlement impacts dramatically the face of the settlement. This is an important move for Toloki and for the settlement itself because by choosing to be a part of Noria’s home, Toloki chooses to belong to the settlement. In the article “Spatial Stories: Photographic Practices and Urban Belonging” by Carol Magee, she describes what she calls “elective belonging”:

…one may be born into that community, or one may move to it, but in either case, when one chooses to stay, one elects to belong. This belonging does not depend on formalized recognition by the community, even if it engages with the community…elective belonging does not depend upon one’s acceptance by one’s elected community: instead…one uses the visual to assert and represent belonging. (110)

Though Toloki still imagines himself an outsider he still moves his material possessions into Noria’s shack and into the settlement. Immediately afterwards people see this as a link between Noria and Toloki, assuming of course they are lovers. This move and recognition, however, is more than nosiness: it is symbolic of the link that is being forged between Toloki and the community. The transition from outsider to member of the community can be slow process unless one becomes active within the community. Toloki is not active at first, and it is only through Noria that he is able to assert himself and contribute to the community.

His role as a “professional mourner” seems to give Toloki a sexless status at the beginning of the novel. He represses his sexuality for the sake of his profession because he intends to emulate a holy man but this isolation and repression allows him access to a perspective that is unique: “[Toloki] attributes his keen sense of observation to the fact that he has not lived with other human beings for many years. He therefore sees things with a fresh eye” (176). The perspective he gains in this practice is important later in the novel when Toloki watches the men and women of the village, especially when he goes with Noria to inform the community about the strike. Toloki notices the “women are never still...always on the move...always on the go” (175), in sharp contrast to the men who “sit all day and dispense wide-ranging philosophies on how things should be...then at night they demand to be given food” (175). The division of work between the men and women is notably unfair as women are expect to cook, clean, and care for the children while the men seem to not have jobs and do not do their share of the housework. The roles at home mirror the roles in community action: it is the women who go out into the communities and rally for change while the men only philosophize their “empty theories” (176). The division in these gender roles within the community is in contrast to the relationship between Toloki and Noria who have a balanced relationship, and who support one another equally. It is not beneath Toloki to meet Noria’s women friends, or to assist the women with cooking or setting up for the community meeting (171).

The roles of men and women in Africa are important to the establishment of local government. Marriage itself is a tool people can, and do, use to establish themselves within the community and to gain access to material or money. For example, there was a custom in the 1920s- 1960s called “The Hats” where young women and young men would enter themselves into a marriage “lottery”:

While the women waited outside, the men were instructed to remove their hats, and leave the room. The hats were lined up on a table, and the women filed in. Each [woman] selected a hat, and was married, there and then, to its owner...This...entitled the newlyweds, together with their dependants, to occupy a township ‘family house’...the official permission to inhabit this cramped and inhospitable space offered a stake in the life of the city which many were desperate to seize. (Posel 57)

As the quote suggests, the people who chose to participate in this seemingly absurd marriage ritual were desperate to participate in the life of the city even at the cost of marrying someone they know nothing about. The article calls this the “logic of partnership” where the emphasis is not on marriage for the sake of love but instead to gain access to life within the city, reserved only for people who were married (58). By participating in marriage people were granted access to a luxury not everyone could have: the links created in marriage became an incentive to participate even at the cost of marrying someone who is entirely a mystery and may not be the best match. This participation in the social structure of marriage that is important for the evolution of communities because marriage, whether done for love or other reasons, is a form of participation in social structures that enables people to become more aware of their own social conditions. By marrying, people choose to participate in their communities thereby linking themselves to it in an intimate way and building ties that allow them more access to material and personal freedoms. The decision to marry under the custom of “The Hats” is then not so absurd and instead takes on a more important role as a form of social participation: sacrificing individuality for the sake of social connectivity, with the promise of easier access to urban luxuries.

The status of single women, and the children who are often with them, is one of poverty in Africa. Building a society that includes women who are not married, especially those who have children, has proven challenging. Cities come bundled with a variety of social problems that are not as easily solved in reality as they are on paper. Cities themselves are almost a paradox of wealth and poverty, as they seem to harbor both equally but also as degrees that mirror one another:

While cities are centers of wealth, they are also the focus of intense poverty...there are high concentrations of poverty within particular cities, making poor urban areas...the highest concentrations of poverty in the country. Moreover, the generally accepted notion that women and children are more vulnerable to poverty holds equally well for urban areas...in fact African women and children make up the bulk of the total urban populations. (Parnell 26)

It is a telling statistic that women and children are the “bulk of the urban populations” and not families or, specifically, male-headed households. Cities are centers of wealth, which is part of the lure to people who are on the other side of the spectrum, the poorest of the people. To be close to those people who have money and to attempt to claim some of that wealth for themselves. Women, however, do not have the same opportunities as men do in the work force: there is an obvious disadvantage for women who are unmarried especially if they have children because they cannot find jobs that pay enough for them to care for themselves and their children. Women are thereby encouraged to marry in order to find security for themselves and their (future) children and men become a woman’s only way to find security within communities.

The emphasis of the novel, however, is not that only one sex embodies the desirable characteristics that enable a community to thrive. Instead the argument is for cooperation and cohesion of the sexes to create a more unified community through the strengths of women and men working together, beginning with individual people, to families, to large-scale community projects. This political identity that is built by the unity of the sexes can be seen as an “effect of belonging” which Aimee Rowe discusses as an aspect of the politics of relation:

A politics of relation is...to tip the concept of “subjectivity” away from “individuality”...rather something called “subjectivity” may be thought as an effect of belonging--of the affective, passionate, and political ties that bind us to others. (18)

As Rowe says, there should be a distinction between the idea of “individuality” and “subjectivity,” and this distinction can be seen in Ways of Dying. At the beginning of the novel Toloki was a single individual who had little impact on his environment and he preferred to keep it that way:

...[Toloki’s] role had been to mourn, and only to mourn. He must keep his priorities straight... The work of the Professional Mourner was to mourn, and not to intervene in any of the proceedings of the funeral. It would lower the dignity of the profession to be involved in human quarrels. (Mda 24-25)

Toloki in the beginning is an individual: he does not concern himself with the living community in any way and is more concerned about the dead. In fact, he is so far outside the social realm he does not consider himself “human.” He is not selfish, and in fact seems quite generous, but his material generosity is countered by a political individuality. Politics for him are an inconvenience, only for humans, and should not interfere with Toloki’s “inspired mourning” (24).

Toloki gains “subjectivity” later when he begins to see the impact that Noria has on her community through personal interaction and outreach. Toloki is still maintains his individuality but through Noria he begins to build interpersonal relationships throughout the community, based on those Noria already has. Their relationship itself begins to shape each of them in different ways, as Noria and Toloki both realize. On page 151 Noria tells Toloki that she wants him to teach her how to live and forgive; later Toloki comes to the conclusion that is it Noria who knows how to live (169). Noria and Toloki share a mutual respect that is not seen among others of their peers, and each one learns from the other ways of living that would not have been apparent without the other. Noria does know how to live just as Toloki knows how to die. This dynamic between them seems odd, however, because Noria has experienced death first hand--such as the tragedy of her two sons--while Toloki seems to draw in all people living with his charisma, despite his awful smell. The importance is not is not what Noria and Toloki have experienced as much as it is the connection between them that brings forth the “effect of belonging” (Rowe)--the connection they form as homeboy and homegirl, and then cohabitating creates a dynamic of respect between men and women that permeates the community in subtle ways. The effects on the neighborhood become evident in the novel when Shadrack acknowledges the partnership between Toloki and Noria:

[Shadrack] had heard from Noria’s homeboys and homegirls of the power she used to have back in the village, and he had never believed the stories. But what he has seen with his own eyes this afternoon has left him dumbfounded. He has never had to much good feeling swelling in his chest before.

‘I cannot spoil things between you two. Yours is a creative partnership.’ (200)

The relationship between Toloki and Noria is more than friendship: it is a connection of artistic inspiration that manages to bring together the community at the end of the novel. The women and children gather around the two of them to marvel at Noria’s singing and Toloki’s pictures.

This community gathering at the end of the novel coincides with the new year’s celebration giving an element of rebirth to the characters and to the community. This rebirth consists of the cohabitation of Noria and Toloki, which links them to the community around them, but also the shared artistic link between them that allows Toloki to draw faces--something he could not do before. In the article “Writing the World from an African Metropolis,” Achille Mbembe and Sarah Nutall discuss the problem with presenting Africa in written form:

To write...is the same thing as to form. To a large extent, to write is to bring to the surface something that is not yet there or that is there only as latent, as potential...the ongoing negotiation...between what is and what could be. (348)

Mda’s novel is a perfect example of this negotiation of potentialities because he creates a world that is fiction, of course, but also manages to capture the struggles of a people who teeter between life and death. The art of Toloki and Noria also captures this negotiation as it manages to “bring to the surface” the question of existence within their urban unit--their art is as much a form as the writing of the novel itself. Even the figurines of Jwara capture the joy of the neighborhood, especially that of the children:

Everyone is absorbed in the figurines. The children are falling into such paroxysms of laughter that they roll around on the ground. Toloki is amazed to see that the figurines give pleasure to the children in the same way that Noria gave pleasure to the whole community back in the village. (210)

Existence, in the case of Noria’s neighborhood, is one that consists of walking that line between “between what is and what could be” (Mbembe 348) precisely because these are a people who live on the outside of the city life, and who are working their way into it. By giving pleasure to these people Toloki and Noria allow them access to a luxury: the ability laugh despite their condition, and the opportunity to laugh whenever one feels like it, which is why it is significant that Toloki and Noria choose to keep the figurines at the end of the novel. In setting up a place where the “children could come and laugh whenever they felt like it” (211) Noria and Toloki bring luxury into the settlement--a luxury made possible only by the unification of Noria and Toloki.

To conclude, personal relationships might seem self-serving as they tend to give people more reasons to care about themselves, but they do serve the communities. When people unite with others they create for themselves networks within the community that communities can use to combat oppression and bring forth large scale change. The unity between people can be a powerful tool in petitioning for change: governments find it easy to ignore small-scale movements but it is hard to ignore larger-scale movements that can often begin with small family units banding together. Individuals have little power without support from others, and that support often arises from the immediate networks people have, beginning with families and moving outward through ever-expanding familial groups. Basically, families provide easy access to large-scale mobilization and this is most easily accessible through establishment of still more families with marriage. Toloki and Noria are successful in their community precisely because they unite--man with woman--forming a family structure that links them to each other and to their community. As individuals they were helpless, but with each other their power to create change increases dramatically. Singularly a person is at the mercy of their environment, but with even one link to a person that changes and suddenly people have more control over everything around them.

Works Cited

Magee, Carol. “Spatial Stories: Photographic Practices and Urban Belonging.” Africa Today, Vol. 54, No. 2 (Winter 2007), pps 109-129. Project Muse. Web. 25 February 2010.

Mbembe, Achille and Sarah Nuttall. “Writing the World from an African Metropolis.” Public Culture, Vol. 16, No. 3, pps 347-372. Project Muse. Web. 28 February 2010.

Mda, Zakes. Ways of Dying. South Africa: Oxford University Press, 1995. Print.

Posel, Deborah. “Marriage at the Drop of a Hat: Housing and Partnership in South Africa’s Urban African Townships, 1920s-1960s.” History Workshop Journal, 61 (2006), pps 57-76. Oxford University Press. Web. 25 February 2010.

Parnell, Susan. “Constructing a developmental nation--the challenge of including the poor in the post-apartheid city.” Transformation, Vol. 58 (2005), pps 20-44. Project Muse. Web. 25 February 2010.

Rowe, Aimee Carrillo. “Be Longing: Toward a Feminist Politics of Relation.” NWSA Journal, Vol. 17, No. 2 (Summer), pps 15-46. Project Muse. Web. 28 February 2010.

ENL 177: “Journal Entry #1—Reaction to Sula by T. Morrison”

Jolene Patricia Brown

ENL 177: T. Morrison

January 12, 2009

Journal #1

Toni Morrison's work is highly political especially in terms of race relations (white/black) and sex relations (male/female). The marriage of Jude and Nel is an important marker of sex relations as well as race relations within the novel because Jude longs to be a “man” yet cannot consider himself a man until he finds a man's job, but those are reserved for whites:

It was after he stood in lines for six days running and saw the gang boss pick out thin-armed white boys from the Virginia hills and the bull-necked Greeks and Italians... that he got the message. So it was rage, rage and a determination to take on a man's role anyhow that made him press Nel about settling down. (82)

Jude longs to be a “man” and to do work that will give him a man's status, not “women's work” that he was performing in the kitchen at his job.

The more he thought about marriage, the more attractive it became. Whatever his fortune, whatever the cut of his garmet, there would always be the hem—the tuck and fold that hid his raveling edges; a someone sweet, industrious and loyal to shore him up...Without that someone he was a waiter hanging around a kitchen like a woman. With her he was head of a household pinned to an unsatisfactory job out of necessity. (83)

His dilemma—longing for manhood in a society that denies it—enlightens the predicament of many men but especially those of color because, unlike the “thin-armed white boys” and the “bull-necked” Europeans, he is not allowed the opportunity for manhood even if he seeks it out for himself. He is forced into a feminine position in white society: relegated to wash dishes in a kitchen; a job usually reserved for a woman. The message sent to him is that he is not man enough to do a man's job and it is his determination to change his forced feminine status to marry. By marrying Nel, Jude can force his way into manhood outside of the control of the white men. He dreams of being a “man” in terms of white men had failed him and “He needed some of his appetites filled, some posture of adulthood recognized, but mostly he wanted someone to care about his hurt...And if he were to be a man, that someone could no longer be his mother” (82). By having a wife and, ultimately, a family to care for Jude can make that leap into manhood without the requirement of a “job” to grant him that status. It may be harder to care for his family because his job prospects are less-than wonderful, but he can take the “man's role” to care for his family.

ENL 122: Raphael’s Blunder: The Hope of Ascension and the Fall of Man

Jolene Patricia Brown

ENL 122: Milton

24 November 2009

Raphael’s Blunder:
The Hope of Ascension and the Fall of Man

Satan’s temptation of Eve begins long before his captivating her as a talking serpent in the garden in book IX. The dream sequence in which Satan first gives Eve the tantalizing fantasy of humans revered as gods puts the idea of ascension into Eve’s mind, but it is Raphael’s speech that allows that fantasy a hope for reality. Raphael is the first to mention the possibility that God might one day raise man up to join the angels in heaven, and by doing so, leaving room for an ambiguous interpretation of the promise. Adam and Eve are left to wonder whether it must be God only to elevate man higher in the heavenly hierarchy, or if the Tree of Knowledge might bypass that route altogether. Raphael is not explicit in his warning to Adam in the first place, but by sending Eve away, Raphael leaves opportunity for miscommunication—and assuredly ambiguity—of the warning between Adam and Eve. This ambiguity would spell disaster for the earthly pair giving Eve an excuse to taste of the fruit of knowledge, damning the pair to eternal strife.

The dream that Satan inspires in Eve in Book V crescendos just after he promises to Eve that, should she eat the fruit, she would “be henceforth among the gods / thyself a goddess, not to earth confined” (V.77-78). This dream was obviously disturbing to Eve, as she slept with “tresses discomposed, and glowing cheek, / As through unquiet rest” (V. 10-11) as well as her reaction to Adam as she wakes with “startled eye,” to embrace him (V. 26-27). When Raphael tells Adam of the possibility of man’s ascension to Heaven, it must have triggered an immediate memory for Eve when Adam passed the message to her. The similarity of Eve’s evil dream to Raphael’s musings on the potential of man is subtle:

…time may come when men
With angels may participate, and find
No inconvenient diet, nor too light fare:
And from the corporal nutriments perhaps
Your bodies may at last turn all to spirit,
Improved by tract of time, and winged ascend
Ethereal, as we, or may at choice
Here or in heav’nly paradises dwell… (V.493-500)

Perhaps Eve, Adam, or both, wondered that since they might ascend as angels, if there was a possibility they might also ascend as gods. After all, making the jump from man to angel would seem almost impossible from their perspective, especially considering Raphael had already put a distinction between the physical form of man and the physical form of angels. The substance from which each is made is vastly different, man of flesh and angels of ether; even the way man reasons is different from that of angels, man discursively and angels intuitively. With all these differences between man and angel it does not seem possible that one, namely man, would be able to make the switch into the other, and even the purpose for such a switch is odd. If God wanted man to be angels eventually, it would seem he would just create more angels instead of implementing a plan for eventual ascension. With all these unusual questions that Raphael leaves open in posing the opportunity for ascension it is no wonder Adam and Eve become tempted by a quicker rise through the ranks by choosing to eat the apple.

Eve is a curious creature: she wonders about the night and for whom the stars are for; she wonders about God, the hierarchy they are a part of, and her place within it. There is no reason why she would not also be inherently curious about the one forbidden tree in the garden, and though she may not have set out intending to eat of it, it can be argued that she was giving herself time away from her two guardians, God and Adam, to satiate her curious appetite. When Eve decides to venture out on her own to work she convinces Adam by arguing that fear in the garden is unfounded, and even if there were something to fear, God would protect them:

“If this be our condition, thus to dwell
In narrow circuit straitened by a foe…
How are we happy, still in fear of harm?
…Let us not then suspect our happy state
Left so imperfect by the Maker wise,
As not secure to single or combined.
Frail is our happiness, if this be so,
And Eden were no Eden thus exposed.” (IX. 322-323, 326, 337-341)

This is an important decision in the garden because it gives Satan the opportunity to exploit the curiosity in Eve’s mind on his own terms without interference from Adam. Eve’s argument seems well-founded: she would rather not “suspect” their happy state, for true happiness would not be experienced in fear. Her separation at this point, however, seems suspicious as their purpose in the garden is not solely for work, as argued by Adam, and certainly God would not have given Adam a partner in the garden only to mandate they work separate from one another. Her motive at this point is questionable, and one wonders if she was naturally curious about the tree, intending to investigate it whether or not the snake was there to tempt her. She does not realize that God is omniscient at this point either, for after she eats of the fruit she wonders if God might have missed her sin because “Heav’n is high, / high and remote to see from thence distinct / each thing on earth” (IX.811-813).

Eve’s dream turned to reality in book nine as the serpent, in place of Satan, reminds Eve to the hope of godhood. The serpent subtly hints to the promise of the dream: that a bite of the fruit will allow her ascension into a goddess-like status, as it moved the serpent to a man-like status. He begins to worship her as if she were already a goddess, which only heightens the excitement of ascension to come:

Fairest resemblance of they Maker fair,
Thee all things living gaze on, all things thine
By gift, and they celestial beauty adore
With ravishment beheld, there best beheld
Where universally admired; but here
In this enclosure while, these beasts among,
Beholders rude, and shallow to discern
Half what in thee is fair, one man except,
Who sees thee? (and what is one?) who shouldst be seen
A goddess among gods, adored and served
By angels numberless, thy daily train. (Book IX.538-548)

The language the serpent uses is one of seduction with words such as fairest, ravishment, beheld, adored, with which the snake pays tribute to her beauty claiming it is beyond the sphere she currently occupies. Her beauty is “celestial,” and belongs to Heaven, not on the earth where it can be enjoyed by only one man and “rude” animals. There is an echo within these lines as well from her original statement to Adam recalling her dream: “A goddess among gods” which is eerily similar to Book V.77-78 mentioned above. The echo here is important because Satan seems almost hypnotically seducing her by worshipping her, assuring her of beauty, and reminding her of the promise of ascension within her dream. The warnings from God, through Raphael, would only confuse her further, for she would remember that ascension might very well be possible even if it means disobeying the orders of God to attain it.

Raphael gave Adam and Eve the reason to believe that the hierarchy of heaven is fluid, and moving between realms is possible. Unfortunately, he is ambiguous enough in his explanation of this ascension that it leaves room to believe there might be other ways to ascend beyond those offered by God. He only exasperates the problem by excluding Eve from direct communication of the warning, exposing the earthly pair to the blunders of miscommunication between one another. Also, has she been present during this conversation, her curious nature might have forced Raphael to be more direct in his warnings, thereby subverting the possibility for ambiguity altogether. By allowing the curious Eve to imagine a world in which man and woman might attain heavenly bodies closer to God, Raphael gives her a reason to try to fruit to speed up that progress. If Adam and Eve had not thought it possible to change the status of the hierarchy they probably would have reconsidered eating the fruit, wondering if the snake was instead an evil enemy of God’s.

ENL 10A: Samson’s Captivity: A Reawakening of Purpose

Jolene Patricia Brown

ENL 10A: English Lit to 1700

19 November 2009

Samson’s Captivity: A Reawakening of Purpose

Milton explores the captivity of man in Samson Agonistes as more than the jail and slave labor that Samson must endure at the hands of the Philistines. Captivity is the fallen condition of man, Milton argues, as man is born with obstacles that must be overcome before he can reach his full potential as a servant of God, which turns out to be another form of captivity. The example of Samson, from the biblical book of Judges, allows Milton to write make this argument from the perspective of a man who was born with gifts bestowed on no other man by God. This is an important perspective from which to write because if a great man can be held captive by his own imperfection, then all men can. It is only through recognition of man’s potential failings that one can reach their full potential despite their post-lapsarian condition.

Samson is captive to the Philistines because he is chained, and forced to do slave labor. This is his most obvious form of captivity: forced physical labor. Samson is forced to slave for those people he was born to destroy, and by doing so is also forced to consider all his failings: “From restless thoughts, that like a deadly swarm / Of Hornets arm’d… / rush upon me thronging, and present / Times past, what once I was, and what am now” (19-22). For Samson, it is not the physical labor that is the worst part of the slavery. With nothing to do but work, he is forced to consider all his failings by his “restless thoughts” and he dissects his own fall from grace, which makes the physical work a form of “ease” from his thoughts (18). He comes to an important conclusion: that strength, though useful, is not immune to failure unless there is wisdom.

But what is strength without a double share
Of wisdom, vast, unwieldy, burdensome,
Proudly secure, yet liable to fall…
God, when he gave me strength, to shew withal
How slight the gift was, hung it in my hair. (53-55, 58-59)

Even his great gift of strength is a form of captivity for Samson because he did not have the wisdom to guard it properly. God endowed the strength with an inherent weakness by placing it in Samson’s hair thereby rendering Samson strong but not invincible. The captivity, therefore, is Samson’s false sense of security brought on by his lack of wisdom and overabundant strength which he does not realize until it is too late and he is physically captive to the Philistines: “Immeasurable strength they might behold / In me, of wisdom nothing more then mean; / This with the other should, at least, have paird, / These two proportion’d ill drove me transverse” (206-209).

The Philistines have also blinded him, depriving him of the light of the world and the light of God:

O loss of sight, of thee I most complain!
Blind among enemies, O worse then chains…
Light the prime work of God to me is extinct,
And all her various objects of delight
Annull’d, which might in part my grief have eas’d… (67-68, 70-72)

His blindness is a sensual captivity as Samson finds himself not only a slave to those he was intended to slay, but also without the guidance of his sight. It is sight that guides man in his daily life, without which one would wander hopelessly lost; without his sight Samson cannot make his way alone in the world. His blindness also implies he is without his God—another form of sight—as it is God who has, until now, guided Samson through his exploits against the Philistines. The sight that Samson has lost is multi-faceted: it is the physical sight in the world that allows him mobility and success in his battles against his enemies, but also the sight of God who has guided him in those battles. The loss of sight is a double-tragedy because he is deprived of a sensual pleasure and a spiritual pleasure, both of which are unbearable to Samson.

Before his captivity by the Philistines, Samson was captive to his passions as a man by allowing himself to be weakened by the love of a woman who is loyal to his enemy. Samson realizes he had fallen into service to woman, instead of in service to God when he states:

The base degree to which I am now fall’n,
these rags, this grinding, is not yet so base
As was my former servitude, ignoble,
Unmanly, ignominious, infamous,
True slavery, and that blindness worse then this,
That saw not how degenerately I serv’d. (414-419)

Both the physical captivity and the sensual captivity that he faces now in service to the Philistines is, he claims, better than his service to woman he paid before his fall. It is this captivity to woman that is another captivity that Samson is subject to, and another that he does not realize until he is already taken prisoner, betrayed by the woman he loved.

Though he ultimately takes responsibility for his own fall in admitting that “She [Delila] was not the prime cause” (234), he still laments his failing to identify her as a “specious Monster” and his “accomplisht snare” (230). The description of Delila as a “specious Monster” is especially telling, as the word specious, according to the OED, means “Having a fair or attractive appearance or character, calculated to make a favourable impression on the mind, but in reality devoid of the qualities apparently possessed” and “Of falsehood, bad qualities.” Samson is captive to her appearance, and his weakness for Delila echoes that of Adam’s for Eve in the garden of Paradise Lost, as both men allow women to have power over them. In Paradise Lost God was forced to remind Adam of the original hierarchy of subjection after the fall:

Was she [Eve] thy God, that her thou didst obey
Before his voice, or was she made they guide,
Superior, or but equal, that to her
Thou didst resign thy manhood, and the place
Wherein God set thee above her made of thee
And for thee, whose perfection far excelled
Hers in all real dignity: adorned
She was indeed, and lovely to attract
They love, not thy subjection… (X.145-153)

Like Adam, Samson’s perfection “far excelled” that of Delila’s, for she not only was an idolater according to the Hebrew people, but she was also a woman, and therefore inherently imperfect and subject to man. The Chorus recognizes this shortcoming of woman as well: “Is it for that such outward ornament / Was lavish’t on thir Sex, that inward gifts / Were left for haste unfinish’t, judgment scant, / Capacity not raise’d to apprehend / Or value what is best / In choice, but oftest to affect the wrong (1025-1030)? Further, like Adam, Samson became enchanted by a woman and allowed himself to become subject to her, overturning the hierarchy of power that should be God over man, man over woman.

Samson is also captive of God, and God’s plans. Samson was a gift to his parents, who could not conceive a child on their own, in order to free the Hebrew people from the Philistines. Samson’s responsibility is to his people and to his God and by allowing himself to be overthrown and taken prisoner by those he is supposed to slay, he has shirked his duties. This is his final captivity, and one that he must embrace and accept before death, though this captivity is one of service to God and not of to man, be it the Philistines or to women. Samson reawakens to his calling, slowly, through the visitations of his father, his wife, and a giant who refuses his challenge:

But come what will, my deadliest foe will prove
My speediest friend, by death to rid me hence,
The worst that he can give, to me the best.
Yet so it may fall out, because thir end
Is hate, not help to me, it may with mine
Draw thir own ruin who attempt the deed. (1262-1267)

At the end of the poem Samson accepts that to be a man in the fallen world is a life of captivity be it captivity to sin, women, slavery, senses or captivity in service to God. It is, however, within man’s power to decide what they will be captive to, and that is when Samson reaffirms his service to God, killing the Philistinian Lords:

Be of good courage, I begin to feel
Some rousing motions in me which dispose
To something extraordinary my thoughts…
If there be aught of presage in the mind,
This day will be remarkable in my life
By some great act, or of my days the last. (1381-1383, 1387-1389)

Captivity in this post-lapsarian world is can be chosen, and what man chooses to be captive to determines his end, be it in shame or in heroism. Samson, because he chose ultimately to be captive to God, became a hero and is remembered to this day for his feats in saving the Hebrew people. Though captivity can deprive man of his gifts, it can also give him strength, depending on the captivity he chooses.

ENL 122: “Adam, Eve and Satan: Disaster in the Garden”

Jolene Patricia Brown

ENL 122

3 Nov 2009

Adam, Eve and Satan: Disaster in the Garden

Adam and Eve are of one flesh; they share every part of their being and existence. By sharing one flesh they are not only of one person; they are one person. It is the ultimate partnership: physical, emotional and spiritual. They are born into a hierarchy that is established from the moment of their conception: there are no questions of authority as God is ruler over Adam; Adam over Eve; both over the animals and plants within the garden. As rational creatures it should be easy for both Adam and Eve to fit themselves into this preformed world, and it leaves no room for them to conceive of anything different. This eliminates the concern for an overthrow of the heavens by humans, since they cannot conceive of anything outside of the hierarchy. These are all strengths in their relationship that should be a recipe for success, however it is exactly these traits that give Satan an edge is his deception and temptation of Adam and Eve in the garden, leading them to make the sacrifice that Satan himself made.

Being created of “one flesh” they are equal and God did create Eve with a capacity for rationality equal to Adam. This is made clear by her tendency to ask good questions, and she takes what she learns very seriously. This equality among the pair makes it clear that by asking her to behave as a subject to Adam seems counter-intuitive. Her curiosity about night, for instance, is a great example of her tendency to think even at a grander scope than even Adam seems capable:

Of grateful evening mild, then silent night
With this her solemn bird and this fair moon,
And these the gems of heav’n, her starry train…
But wherefore all night long shine these, for whom
This glorious sight, when sleep hath shut all eyes? (VI. 647-649, 657-658)

Adam gives her an answer of nothing more than to say that to watch the beauty of the nighttime would take away from worship of God: “These then, though unbeheld in deep of night, / Shine not in vain, nor think, though men were none, / That heav’n would want spectators, God want praise” (IV. 674-676). This answer seems too simple for a question as thought provoking as Eve’s, for it does seem strange that God would spend time creating a beautiful nighttime world only to have his most prized creatures not take advantage of it.

The unity of Adam and Eve is what the narrator wants us to reflect on when he makes his hail on “wedded love” as a “mysterious law, true source / Of human offspring, sole propriety / In paradise of all things common else” (IV. 750-752). Any wedded pair should share a bond between them that is brought forth in a physical form by procreation. Marriage is, to the narrator, a unity on every level between two people that culminates in the creation of children. Satan interferes with the ultimate plan for Adam and Eve to create children within the garden. The interjection of Satan into this plan poses him as a threat to the unity between man and God, but also between man and women as the symbol of their unity—children—never come to fruition.

Neither Adam nor Eve understands the concept of evil. Being confined to a state of innocence allows them a freedom that no other human will have after them: ignorance without fear of sin. Because they do not know evil they will never commit, accidentally or otherwise, a sin against God because, in their present situation, they have no idea what a sin is or how to commit it. This innocence and ignorance of sin is implied by what is their sign of obedience:

…God has pronounced it death to taste that Tree,
The only sign of our obedience left…
Then let us not think hard
One easy prohibition, who enjoy
Free leave so large to all things else, and choice
Unlimited of manifold delights… (IV. 427-428, 432-435)

It is only through the outside influence of Satan that they are led into a temptation to sin and eat of the tree of knowledge which frees them of their innocence and ignorance. Indeed it is innocence which makes them vulnerable since they cannot conceive of evil and they cannot conceive of hypocrisy or trickery. Despite Raphael’s warnings to be on their guard against Satan, even that idea is beyond their scope of understanding. They have no concept of guile, mistrust, lies or ill-intentions. Asking them to be on guard against that which they cannot understand is like asking a child to know what is best for them: it cannot, in the best interests of the child, be done.

Satan’s primary motivation throughout these first books is jealousy. It is clear that he is jealous of the Son who was promoted above him by God, but his jealousy is rekindled when he realizes the love and joy that is shared by God and man in the garden.

Sight hateful, sight tormenting! thus these two
Imparadised in one another’s arms
The happier Eden, shall enjoy their fill
Of bliss on bliss, while I to hell am thrust,
Where neither joy nor love, but fierce desire,
Among our other torments not the least,
Still unfulfilled with pain of longing pines. (IV.505-511)

Satan sacrificed all that he loved for nothing more than a shot at a throne he would never achieve. In seeing Adam and Eve in their nuptial bliss he must be reminded of the joys in heaven of which he is now deprived because of nothing more than his own pride and jealousy. It is his jealousy, first of God and then of Adam and Eve, that continually drives him to make the wrong decisions: first to turn away from God and ultimately be hurled from heaven, and then to tempt Adam and Eve into sin. Both of his decisions were because he was jealous of what was not his, power in heaven and love on earth.

Satan deprives man of the one thing that would have saved him from temptation: unity, both between God and man, as well as between man and woman. Satan recognizes that the hierarchy of God/man/woman has changed as Adam declares Eve his “best image” and “dearer half” (V.95) and it is this weakness alone that allows Satan the opportunity to drive each pair apart. Satan does not want God, Adam or Eve to have what he has been deprived of: true love. Since God has already defeated Satan, the best Satan can do is to take away God’s prized new creation, and ruin the unity between the happy pair.

Adam and Eve had everything they needed to be happy in the garden, just as Satan had everything he needed to be happy in Heaven. Adam and Eve were innocent and ignorant of sin, and only had to show obedience through refraining from eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge. The hierarchy of power only needed to be maintained between God and man/man and woman in order for authority to have stopped the tragedy to come. They were also given warnings from heaven about Satan, and a reminder that with knowledge, comes death. This, however, did nothing to stop Satan from deciding his pride and jealousy should bring ruin to Adam and Eve. Adam, by putting Eve above himself, changed the dynamic of power in the garden; Satan introduced sin and jealousy into the garden by showing Eve the dream of man as gods; suddenly ignorance is something to fear. All of these combine to create a perfect opportunity for man to fall from God, and Satan to take his revenge upon God, by denying him man as a perfect creation on earth.

ENL 111: "The Power of Women in Malory's Arthurian Works"

Jolene P. Brown

Dr. K. Smith

ENL 111

8 June 2009

The Power of Women in Malory’s Arthurian Works

The women of King Arthur’s world have two important attributes in the work of Malory. It is the women in the stories who establish gender roles between a knight and a lady or create ambiguous gender roles, raising questions about the significance of masculinity and femininity. As well as creating gender distinctions, a lady is often the key factor in determining the destiny of the knights and a knight’s relationship to a woman can be a determining factor is his success or failure in the sphere of the court. It is in this way that women have control over the masculine realm around them, and though their role is limited and very subtle, it is important to the overall continuum of Arthur’s court and his knights. The combination of establishing the gender role and determining the success or failure of a knight makes the women of Arthur’s world powerful creatures, which may explain the prevalence of mystical and magical qualities associated with the female realm, since the power that women wield is, at times, so subtle it is hardly recognized as power at all.

In Malory’s text, the women of King Arthur’s court do not often have a voice unto themselves. Instead of speaking, women use objects and attributes to communicate to each other and to knights in ways that are not altogether obvious. In her essay “Female Heroes, Heroines, and Counter-Heroes,” Maureen Fries argues that Arthurian women play one, and rarely more, of her three defined roles in connection to their femininity: a female hero, a heroine, or a counter-hero. However, she goes on to say:

All of these women, even the comparatively powerful counter-heroes, are limited by their inability to assume such traditional male roles as the warrior one of physical combat…female heroes and counter-heroes must use guile, both verbal and magical…As for heroines, they have only their beauty, a chancy weapon at best. (72)

Though it is true that women are limited to a certain numbers of tools at their disposal for moving up the social ladder they make effective use of what they have to further their cause. By making use of beauty, magical charms, spells, and companionship with other women, the ladies of the court are able to etch out an existence that, more often than not, works to their favor.

The goal of most Arthurian women is marriage and many of the women identify their future partners quickly by judging a knight according to his outward appearance, chivalrous character and family affiliations. Winning those partners, however, tends to be a harder feat than just the identification as there are often competitions among ladies for the best of the knights. The most obvious example of this is found in the overwhelming attraction to Lancelot and the lengths to which women go to seduce him for their own. Lancelot is pursued by four queens, who demand he choose one of them as his paramour (Malory p. 152); he is tricked into siring Galahad by Eleyne who drugs him (480); he is nursed back to health then given an ultimatum by another Elaine, who commits suicide at his refusal to be her husband or allow her to be his paramour (638). Each of these women uses their best skills in an attempt to woo or otherwise gain the favor of sir Lancelot. Despite their overall failures, their attempts should not be discounted as ineffective or frivolous. The power that each wields is strong, failing only because their choice of knight to enact it upon is Lancelot, the greatest knight of all. It can be argued that their failure in this capacity speaks more to the power of Lancelot than it does to lack of talent or power on the part of these very motivated queens and maidens.

Arthurian women play a vital role in the unfolding of Malory’s story despite their lack of voice and overall dismissal to the edges of the plot. There are several instances where women dictate not only the direction of the story, but also foresee and, indeed, enforce the outcome of the story. Through their use of their beauty, magic, magical items, feminine charms or even emotional appeals and ultimatums, women are able to manipulate the men around them to perform tasks that range from the menial to heroic. Even weapons, which are almost exclusively items that are identified with masculinity, are almost always associated with a woman through ownership or access, as discussed by Geraldine Heng:

Perhaps the most enigmatic and dangerous items of this material trove are swords, the instruments on which all masculine accomplishment must turn, and therefore pivotal to conceptions of male identity and personal force. These are so strongly associated with the feminine sources and ownership as sometimes to be only temporarily accessible to men. (98)

Women, though they do not wield the weapons, still have the power to dictate who will receive the weapons. For example, Excalibur belongs to the Lady of the Lake who claims ownership of it when Arthur wants it for his own: “’Sir Arthur,’ seyde the damsel, ‘that swerde ys myne, and if ye woll gyff me a gyffte whan I aske hit you, ye shall have hit” (Malory 35). The sword is hers, and it is hers to barter with in order to ask a favor—a gift—of Arthur at a later date. If it were not hers to trade, it could be argued, she would probably not be so quick to promise it away.

As the most obvious of the female figures in the tales of Arthur, Guinevere’s virtue lies in her beauty, as she holds the two most powerful men in the kingdom under the power of her beauty: Arthur, the king of England, and Lancelot, the greatest knight of the king’s court. Her beauty seems to have a magical element to it as a woman points out to Lancelot during one of his many adventures that “hit is noysed that ye love quene Guenyvere, and that she hath ordeyned by enchauntemente that ye shall never love none other but hir, nothing none other damesell ne lady shall rejoice you” (160 40-42). Though there is not mention of Guinevere practicing any kind of magical or enchanted arts, the implication speaks clearly of the power of her beauty and how it might affect both her husband and lover. Her use of her power seems to be limited to attaining a high station in life through her marriage to a king and maintaining that station through the work of her lover, Lancelot. Her beauty secures her queen-ship as Arthur tells Merlin he wishes to marry her because she “is the moste valyaunte and fayryst that I know lyvyng, or yet that ever I coude fynde” (59). Arthur marries her despite the warnings given to him by Merlin, arguably Arthur’s most trusted advisor, and enters the marriage with the knowledge that she and Lancelot are determined to be in love with one another. Though it is Arthur’s decision to follow through with this marriage despite the warnings and the knowledge of his wife’s eventual betrayal, it might also be seen as power that Guinevere has in her beauty. The reader is not told Guinevere’s reaction to being the object of the king’s affections, but it is not hard to imagine her being pleased at the prospect of marrying the powerful king of England, especially given that “Arranged marriages were the norm among the aristocracy and gentry in Malory’s day…Guinevere probably did not have to be coerced into marrying Arthur. He was a young king, renowned for his prowess and worship, and she might reasonably expect to grow to love him in time” (Kennedy 15).

Lancelot is also subject to Guinevere’s beauty, as it is he who maintains her position in the court. It is understood that no other knight can defeat Lancelot because he is the greatest knight in the world, and it is Lancelot who fights for Guinevere in place of Arthur on at least one occasion. For instance, when Lancelot is away, suffering Guinevere’s wrath, she has a dinner for the Knights of the Round Table, to show her appreciation for all of them. Unfortunately, there is an assassination plot on Gawain, and when it goes wrong, killing another knight, it is Guinevere who is blamed since she is the one who planned the dinner. Though the circumstances of the blame are unusual, and signal an environment of mistrust among the knightly brethren, what is more alarming is the mistrust directed at the wife of the king. Arthur cannot help her for his political ties as king, and even he suggests that Lancelot should be the one to defend her honor. Despite their earlier argument, and Guinevere’s seemingly characteristic unhappiness with him, Lancelot returns to defend her, and does so successfully. Lancelot is so in love with Guinevere, the woman he cannot have, that he passes up the opportunity to marry or otherwise secure the love of other eligible and beautiful women, such as the lady Elaine the Fair Maid of Astolat who kills herself for his love. Guinevere asks Lancelot why he did not show Elaine more mercy and his reply is succinct: “she wolde none other ways be answered but that she wolde be my wyff other ellis my paramour, and of thes two I wolde not graunte her…I love nat to be contrayned to love, for love muste only aryse of the harte self, and nat by none constraynte” (641). Lancelot is controlled by Guinevere’s beauty, at least to some extent, to go to such great lengths, even restoring her position as queen when their affair is alleged by Aggravayne and Mordred during the final chapter of Malory’s work.

Morgan le Fay is one of the more complex female roles in the Arthurian universe since, depending on the text, is sibling, friend, enemy, sorceress, enabler and disabler to Arthur. In Malory’s text she is cast in the role of villain, and her power obviously lies in the realm of magic and enchantment, which she wields over men to gain power over them. She is not the only woman who uses magic to her advantage, for the Lady of the Lake, Nyneve also does and traps Merlin who is trying to woo her. But there are differences in the way each woman uses her abilities:

If Morgan and Nyneve may be said to differ…it is a difference of intensity, rather than of kind. Nyneve…is more impersonal in her relations with the Arthurian world, less interested in its quotidian operations. Morgan…is intensely interested in the Arthurian ethos as a stage for her powers, and the disruptions she manufactures…point to a pleasure in their competitive display. (Heng 106)

Morgan takes pleasure in the control of men, and indeed does so at every opportunity she gets. She is one of the queens to pursues Lancelot to be his paramour (152), shortly after taking Accolon as a lover and using him to kill Arthur while she killed her own husband, only be stopped by her son, Uwayne (90 35-41). The Lady of the Lake, at least from the perspective of Arthur and his court, seems a more subtle, helpful influence on the activities of the court, while Morgan continues her disruptions throughout the story.

Morgan also deprives Arthur of the precious scabbard of Excalibur, which is supposed to keep him from ever losing blood (Malory 36). She steals into this chamber intending to steal the sword, but because the sword is “naked” in the hands of Arthur, she decided to take the scabbard instead, rather than risk waking him:

And she wente streyte unto his chamber…When the kynge awoke and myssid his scawberde, he was wroth, and so he asked who has bene there, and they sayde his sister, quene Morgan le Fay, had bene there and had put the scawberde undir hir mantel and is gone…’Sir,’ seyde they all, ‘we durst nat disobey your sistyrs commaundemente.’ (91)

The power she has over men is made evident in this passage for “we durste disobey,” which could be attributed to both her magic and to her place in the king’s family as his sister. Morgan is in control of Arthur’s fate at this point in the story, as she takes the scabbard and deprives him of his ability to spend an eternity on the English throne. Morgan, unlike Arthur, realizes the importance of the scabbard and it should be noticed that the power of Excalibur lies “not in blade but in the scabbard or sheath (Lat. vagina)” (Heng 98) and in depriving Arthur of his scabbard she is depriving him of an important connection and balance to the feminine world. This act could be interpreted as the beginning of the end with his wife, as his sword no longer has its sheath, he is also meant to lose the sheath to his own sword.

The power of women in the Arthurian world is not limited to that of Guinevere and Morgan. Many of the women in Arthur’s kingdom manage to control and manipulate their surroundings to their own benefit and ends. There are several examples of this in the story of Balin, the Knight with Two Swords. At the beginning of the story a damsel enters Arthur’s court in search of a great knight who can pull her sword out of her sheath. It is only evident later, through the help of Merlin, that the woman has asked the ladies of Avalon to help her have revenge on her brother by having part in the death of a great knight’s brother by use of that sword she is asking knights to pull out of the sheath. When Balin is successful in pulling the sword and refuses to give it back, even after the damsel’s request, she threatens him saying “ye ar nat wyse to kepe the swerde fro me, for ye shall sle with that swerde the beste frende that ye have and the man that ye moste love In the worlde, and that swerde shall be youre destruccion” (Malory 39-40). Through the use of these words and by this damsel seeking out the help of magical women to further her destructive cause, the damsel is creating her own destiny. It may not be the most chivalrous life, being that her mission is to bring destruction and revenge, and hers is certainly not an honorable cause, but she, unlike some of the other women of the court, is empowered to seek out what she feels is important.

Other women are given power by the author, since it is the death of these particular women that determine the fates of the knights who are involved. Again, from the story of Balin, the Lady of Sir Launceor kills herself upon her knight’s sword upon discovering his death at the hands of Balin, to which Merlin warns Balin how her death will affect the course of his adventure:

…because of the dethe of that lady [Launceor’s lady] thou shalt stryke a stroke moste dolorous that every man stroke, excepte the stroke of oure Lorde Jesu Cryste…and thorow that stroke three kyngdomys shall be brought into grete poverte, miseri and wrecchednesse twelve yere. And the knight shall nat be hole of that wounde many yerys. (45)

Still another example of a woman’s power after her death is found in the story of Torre and Pellinor, where Gawain is punished for the lack of mercy he shows toward another knight, yet instead of killing the knight: “Ryght so com hys lady oute of a chamber and felle over hym, and so he smote of hir hede by myssefortune” (66). The gruesome punishment that Gawain is forced to endure not only shows the extent to which Gawain suffers the torment of his lack of mercy, but also forces him to change the way he approaches both knights and women in the battle field since “sir Gawayne sworne upon the four Evaungelystis that he sholde never be ayenste lady ne jantillwoman but if he fight for a lady and hys adversary fyghtith for another” (67). Even after death women seem to have a power to change the fortune of knights, whether it be for better or for worse, and sometimes both.

While it is true that women have a limited role compared to the vast scope of the chivalric brotherhood, battlefield and honor code of the masculine realm of which they are a part of they do have significant powers in those realms they do control. Their realm is that of love, and a woman who can not only identify her lover, but also capture him and make him her knight, her paramour or her husband has truly mastered her womanhood. In taking advantage of what talents and skills they have, women are able to create for themselves a small part of their world that they can control. Like their control in the realm of love, as argued by Geraldine Heng,

…knightly obedience to and cooperation with the feminine supply effective means for actualizations of feminine will, creating an agency by which women may be active in the world. Knightly actions, where they are an extension of feminine will, are, in this sense, transparent, and have been describes as…the exploits of ladies through the medium of knights. (102)

It is through the interactions with the masculine and, ultimately, forging ties with the masculine realm that women are given power beyond that which is given them by their gender. Those women who cannot connect with the masculine realm, such as those women who learn magic, or those to betray the masculine realm, still manage to maintain a power unique to their gender. Men, on the other hand, must maintain a connection to the feminine in order to reach their full potential within their gender, be it through love, chivalry, or sex. Without the balance on the masculine side, the man falls victim to women and must suffer the wrath of those women who can control the realm that he is not only separate from, but has limited understanding of.

Works Cited

Fries, Maureen. "Female Heroes, Heroines, and Counter-Heroes: Images of Women in Arthurian Tradition." Arthurian Women: A Casebook. Ed. Thelma S. (ed and introd). Fenster. New York, NY: Garland, lxxvii, 1996. 59-73.

Heng, Geraldine. "Enchanted Ground: The Feminine Subtext in Malory." Arthurian Women: A Casebook. Ed. Thelma S. (ed and introd ). Fenster. New York, NY: Garland, lxxvii, 1996. 97-113.

Kennedy, Beverly. "Malory's Guenevere: A 'Trew Lover'." On Arthurian Women: Essays in Memory of Maureen Fries. Ed. Bonnie (ed and foreword) Wheeler and Fiona (ed and foreword) Tolhurst. Dallas, TX: Scriptorium, xiii, 2001. 11-34.

Malory, Sir Thomas. Complete Works of Malory. Ed. Eugene Vinaver. 2^nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971.