The way 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 The character ambiguity distinguishes female personalities in novels beyond their status as ideological representations or roles in the male hero's story. In these texts, however, the challenges thrown at the hero by women imply that the men portrayed here are pawns in a larger scheme rather than equals in any battle between the sexes, and the overlapping female identities are the result of their non-understanding. this broader female context. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Geraldine Heng proposes this alternative context as a truly second "female text" that can be found where the logic of male, Gawain-centric fiction fails, as in Morgan La Fey's seemingly arbitrary rules of the trading game . What initially appears as Gawain's story, with women serving only as representations of his motivations, becomes a struggle against him "within the psychomania of a female narrative" that he does not understand. He initially wears the Virgo as a talisman on his shield, turning her into an object for inspiration, but in the final confrontation with Morgan, the Virgo reclaims "hir kny3t" (1769) from the sorceress, reversing the active and passive roles. they had. This passage also makes it clear that the struggle is between holy and pagan female representatives (one part of Christian iconography, the other called "goddess"), and that various female roles are also compared by the text on many occasions. Morgan's plan is ultimately antagonistic to Guinevere, but the Lady he uses as a "ventriloquized double" is also caught in parallel with the Queen. Guinevere is positioned next to Gawain in court (109) in a scene very similar to his later sitting next to the Lady (1003), and the description of the Lady as "wener þen Wenore" evokes Guinevere's name so unambiguously that Griffith proposed that the Lady was a second, the same 'false Guenevere'. Paul Battles analyzed how editors changed 'þa3 I was burde bry3test, þe burde in mynde hade' (1283) or 'Though I was the fairest of women,' thought the lady', changing 'I' to 'ho' and changing the second "burde" to "burne", so that the first meeting between Gawain and the Lady remains entirely from his perspective. This choice not only actively marginalizes a female perspective, but prevents a meaningful moment of cross-knowledge, as the passage goes on to mention details of the Green Knight's challenge, which the Lady is not supposed to know. That moment alludes to the connection between the Lady and Morgan that must have existed, and to a larger female conspiracy beyond Gawain and Morgan are involved in physical confrontation in verses 950-69, as one is fresh and the other withered in quantity equal ("For if þe 3onge watz 3ep, 3ol3e watz þat oþer") and this contrast is structurally represented 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, is revealed to be an instrument of Morgan's desires. Their respective roles within the narrative, within society's accepted justice system and on the margins, become blurred so that the very purpose of Gawain's challenge is confounded by the intertwined ideological representations. Some critics have decided that all of Chaucer's characters serve more to illustrate ideologies andmoral positions, which as recreations of realistic interiority. D. W. Robertson imposed the same view on the Wife of Bath in particular, declaring 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 individual who also represents a moral position, and there are clear contradictions in her character that arguably prove that she is the most human of all. Chaucer's Pilgrims. Hers is the longest prologue of all the tales, taking into account such disparities as her fifth husband being initially called "to me the mooste shrewe" (505) and later kind enough to give her "rulership of the house and earth" (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 story cannot be as simple as the fact that women are indistinguishable beyond their social roles. The queen issuing a challenge to the knight mirrors the narrator herself challenging the male listeners, just as the hag's conclusion that she can be "good and trewe" (1243) as a wife if she is given rule in the marriage echoes the epilogue of the Prologue, that Alisoun was "kynde... and also trewe" (823-5), with the necessary caveat "so was he to me." Just as the crone knowingly deceives the knight by teaching a lesson by disguising herself, Alisoun deceives her audience by only revealing information about her true appearance as the knight learns it rather than maintaining the loquacious style that leads to extensive references to Ovid. In a foreshadowing of the character's mutability in the service of a lesson, the hag had previously appeared as twenty-four young dancing maidens, and her approach to them is described in the line "towards which daunce hedrow ful yerne" (993) equally eager, in contrast with the revulsion he feels towards the old witch in the line "a sight more loathsome than any man could conceive" (999). actions, hypothetical or literal, are emphasized in descriptions of these female apparitions, as how a man may choose to act towards them apparently decides their importance. This emphasis of his actions demonstrates his journey towards ultimately choosing not to act and instead placing himself under the "rule" of his wife. The transformation of women, however, already alludes to a "government" of nature and a flexibility of roles that go beyond its knowledge. Seductive young maidens in a forest play a different traditional role in chivalric tales (that of tempting the knight) than an old witch representing wisdom, and the woman's active choice to embody both in addition to her royal appearance to teach a lesson the knight is connected to Alisoun as narrator. Both are challenging him to discover what knowledge they already possess by comparing him to several overlapping female forms. In Morte D'Arthur, Corbin's Elaine intentionally disguises herself as Guinevere, in a deliberately confusing seduction similar to Morgan the Fey's deception of Gawain using the courtly role of the Lady. Because of this deception, Elaine encompasses both the typical female role of romance novels, the beautiful queen who represents the ideal of Christian femininity, and the deceptive enchantment usually associated with marginal and othered figures such as Morgan le Fey or the intriguing Dame Brisen who deceives Lancelot in this section. Elaine's name also connects her to another character in Morte D'Arthur, Elaine of Ascolat, who also loves Lancelot in vainand uses his body to barter with him. 8 Malory allows the reader to empathize with this more deceptive Elaine by having the child of this union be the virtuous Galahad, and by appealing to the reader to understand him directly: 'A grete why I must love him, because he had my madynhode' (472/11:9) This justification allows for greater understanding of their encounters outside of Lancelot's misunderstanding, and echoes Malory's defense of Guinevere's adultery with Lancelot: "she was a terrible lover, and for this she had a good end" (625/18:25). She is also linked through imagery to the dove greeting Lancelot at the entrance to Pellesha Castle "a little golden censer" in her mouth, while she has "a vase in your hands" upon first meeting. Being connected to an animal through a symbol of monetary value may seem dehumanizing, but the biblical association of a dove demonstrates that God and destiny chose her for this fateful union in a similar to the Spirit of God landing like a dove on the shoulder of Christ. after his baptism to claim him 9 , validating his deception and emotional motivation as part of a larger scheme. The parallel may also further connect her to Guinevere: Elaine's deception will soon be redeemed by her son, but Guinevere repents of her adultery with the mercy Malory describes in later books. While Elaine's plan may echo Uther who previously fathered Arthur by pretending to be Ygraine's husband. in the first book, the consequences of this pairing likely remain within the "female context" unknown to Lancelot. Elaine's female body transforms again, but this time into the role of mother through pregnancy, which she embraces and uses to defend herself from her anger ("do not kill me, for I will have from you a son who will be the noblest knight"). of the world': appealing to her desire for an heir to manipulate him), rather than being a woman dragged against her will into a male plan to continue his lineage. The female context frames all of this as another challenge for the man where both the plan and the outcome are out of his reach, and although her father is aware of the prophecy, Malory emphasizes Elayne's love and that she was "happy " to have him in her bed, prioritizing his emotions over thoughts of the inheritance. Siobhan M. Wyatt speculates that another consequence, regret over his initially violent outburst, "prepares him for the necessary penitential state of mind of the Grail quest." This interpretation may seem to reduce Elaine as a character, but by tying the mutability of her body to the powers of destiny that guide the knights' quests, the feminine deception she embodies once again becomes part of a larger scheme beyond Lancelot's comprehension. The female characters overlap and are parallel to each other. others by the way they are framed by fate or narrative, but also by their own actions in deliberately deceiving and defying men. Rather than diminish their individuality, then, these connections may portray women's schemas as beyond the grasp of the male chivalric figure, suggesting the second "female text" beneath the genre's conventional focus. Works Cited Geoffrey Chaucer, "Sir Gawain" and the Green Knight', in: The Poems of the Pearl Manuscript, ed. Andrew and Waldron, University of California Press (reprinted 1982) Prologue and Tale of the Wife of Bath, in The Riverside Chaucer, ed. Larry D. Benson, Oxford University Press (reprinted 2008), pp. 105-121.Thomas Malory, Morte D'Arthur, published as Malory's Works, ed. Eugene Vinaver, Oxford University Press (reprinted 1971)Geraldine Heng, 'Feminine Knots and the other Sir Gawain.10.