This summer, I have worked at a day camp for children in grades kindergarten through sixth. Despite saying several times that I prefer older kids, I have mainly worked with the youngest group, K-2. Throughout much of the summer, I have had a lunch group – it is my job to make sure they eat their lunch, don’t share food, and don’t kill each other. It can be difficult to think of activities that keep them contained (I can only supervise so many games of tag before I start to lose it), so I bring story books to read during lunch.
Which is nice, honestly, because I can use them to further my own feminist, multi-cultural agenda. I try to select books that take place in other countries and/or feature a strong heroine. I have also read European fairy tales – which are generally the most popular. But I have also kept an eye out for “older” stories – Greco-Roman myths or medieval tales. I was delighted when I found a lovely version of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight by Mark Shannon, illustrated by David Shannon, at the Corvallis Public Library. The campers were rather excited about it – I think the “knight” aspect excited them. Both girls and boys enjoyed this story (at this age, generally the girls prefer listening to the books; the boys play with cards or with sticks). It was exciting for me to have the chance to expose them to a story that I’m pretty sure I didn’t even hear of until I was in college.
Earlier this week, I was back at the public library to get more books. Most of the myths and fairy tales are kept in the 398’s (Dewey Decimal). I scoured the section, hoping to find more stories like Sir Gawain. There was an illustrated edition of Beowulf I kept picking up and putting down – it was very wordy and the pictures small. I found several lovely books based on Sumerian and Egyptian stories that I happily added to my pile. I found a book entitled Medieval Tales that I knew would be too wordy for campers – I grabbed it for myself. But finely I hit the jackpot: a beautiful volume called Sir Gawain and the Loathly Lady retold by Selina Hastings, with illustrations by Juan Wijngaard.
Friday, August tenth, I set out my pile of books. The little girls in my lunch group immediately asked me to read The Loathly Lady. The illustrations are quite lovely, which is what I think sparked their interest. They also asked if this was the next chapter in the Sir Gawain story; I said it sort of was. I had not read the book prior to reading it to my campers, and I was quite surprised by how different the tale was from Chaucer’s.
Now, I should add that nowhere in the book does it say that is story is a retelling of Chaucer’s tale. However, reviews on amazon.com do suggest that it is – and the story itself is clearly a version of the Wife of Bath’s tale. Even if Hastings did not set out to retell Chaucer’s story specifically, she clearly drew inspiration from Chaucer.
The story begins with King Arthur meeting a Black Knight who asks Arthur to answer the question, “What do women most desire?” Arthur has three days to answer the question. If he does not or cannot, he must forfeit his kingdom and his life. While searching for the answer, Arthur comes across an ugly crone who says she will give him the answer. She says she will give him the answer if he grants her one wish; Arthur agrees to this.
At this point in the book, my campers – mainly female, with a few males – were entranced by the illustration of the Loathly Lady. They commented on how ugly she was and didn’t want to look at the picture.
Once Arthur gets his answer, he asks the Loathly Lady for her wish. “My request is this: you must give me one of your knights to be my husband” (14) she says. At first Arthur balks, but then agrees. He then meets up with the Black Knight and is able to save his kingdom and his life. That night, Arthur confides in Guinevere that he’s not sure what to do. Gawain overhears and says he will defends the king’s honor. So Arthur and his knights set out to find the Loathly Lady and bring her back to court. The other knights make fun of her, but Gawain is kind to her. The wedding takes place, but no one is very happy.
Again, my campers were very intrigues with the illustration at this point. The wedding scene covers two pages, with the Loathly Lady and Gawain in the center. They again commented on how ugly she was. They were also quite taken with a small monkey in the corner of the drawing. They are always surprising me in noticing small details like that.
After the wedding, Gawain and the Loathly Lady went off to their chamber. While the author never made explicit what was going on, the sexual subtext was quite apparent to me, and I felt very odd reading this story to children. I don’t think they picked up on it. Still, as I was reading, I began to wonder if this is really a “kid’s story” or who the original audience might have been in the 1300s. Of course, a lot of Beauty and the Beast stories have this kind of subtext – in some versions, the beast does not turn into a human until he and Beauty have spent the night together. But then, many of those fairy tales were not intended for children per se. Finally, on the other hand, as one of my teachers put it – with everyone sharing such a small space, children had a fairly good idea of what sex was. Reading “older” stories to modern youngsters often troubles me for these reasons. Childhood is both the same and very different from earlier eras.
The juxtaposition of illustrations at this point is also a little confusing, at least to one who “knows” the story. On page 24, Guinevere kisses the Loathly Lady; on page 25, we see Gawain looking despondent in a chair, with a lovely long lady behind him. Is the lady Guinevere? Has her kiss transformed the Loathly Lady in some way? On page 25, the Loathly Lady explains that Gawain has half-released her from a spell. She then asks him the question: beautiful by night or day? Gawain answers her and she gets angry; he changes his answer, and she is still angry. Finally he says, “You must choose which you prefer” (27). She says this is correct answer and says the spell is broken. The next day there is a wonderful celebration at court.
The campers liked it.
The ending bothered me for several reasons. The Loathly Lady becomes beautiful before Gawain makes his choice. He does not actually give her the correct answer – he gives the “wrong” answer first. Gawain has not learned the true lesson of the tale and must be bullied into the correct answer. This seems to remove the agency of both characters – Gawain gets what he wants by default; the Loathly Lady has not really gained mastery over him. The ending sort of undermines the entire point(s) of the story.
I do not mind the changes in the beginning, however. If one is presenting this as a solidly children’s book, it would not do to start it off with rape. Introducing the Black Knight works rather well, though his question does seem rather odd. (If he’s a Black Knight, why not just fight Arthur for the kingdom?) Some kind of evil enchantress might have worked better. But that might be straying a bit too much from the Arthur mythology; at least there are Black Knights all over the place in Arthur stories.
I am left ruminating about the themes in this book – what is universal, what is modern, what is medieval. The campers’ reactions struck me – as universal. The point of stories like this was a way for people to deal with the prospect of marrying someone they had never seen – the fear that one might get stuck with a Beast or Loathly Lady – and the hope that whatever the outer appearance, the inner person would be a good one. I think my modern audience’s gut reaction to was not far off from the medieval one. But I find the changing of the ultimate “moral” very strange. The message that women desire to have sovereignty comes across as a fairly modern idea.
No comments:
Post a Comment