Transformation in Malory's Morte Darthur

In Morte Darthur (ca. 1469-70) Sir Thomas Malory (ca. 1405-1471) skillfully represents the passing of a social order. King Arthur's death is to be understood as more than a mere physical death, but as the foretelling of the demise of medieval chivalry (Abrams 447). An examination of the alteration, redemption or transformation of four central characters in Morte Darthur offers insight into how Malory represents pride as a commonplace but destructive human failing. Scrutiny of King Arthur, Lancelot, Guenevere and Gawain is suggestive of four distinctive patterns of pride as a destructive force. Collectively, by combining these four portraits of characters struggling to become less wilful, Malory offers a panoramic view of medieval values with its age-specific virtues and deficiencies.

Malory places King Arthur in one of the romance's most precarious positions. For Arthur realizes that those who he loves the most, his lovely queen Guenevere, and his favorite Knight of the Round Table, Sir Lancelot, have betrayed him by forming an adulterous relationship. As he struggles to continue ruling as a benevolent and wise king, he is tormented by this knowledge. The clandestine nature of their liaison seems to preclude his direct confrontation of the facts. Here King Arthur's pride is ensnared in the space of silence and impotence. He has been trained to rule and to dominate. He is speechless when he is handed a position of second r

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r husband, King Arthur (Malory 154). Malory indicates that Guenevere still feared seeing Lancelot face to face. Two days before her death she tells the sisters that she must not spy Lancelot with her "worldly eyen" (Malory 154). Then, with almost fatalistic intent, she dies only a half an hour before his arrival there (Malory 154). Now dead, Lancelot is allowed to see her face, the one which she tried, perhaps too late, to veil from him. He performs her funeral mass, sighing rather than weeping (Malory 154). By this detail, Malory seems to be indicating that Lancelot is beginning to accept the fate imposed upon him rather than trying to impose his will upon the world. When her burial is complete, Lancelot swoons and announces the depth of his sorrow. Those surrounding him suggest that the outward display of such sorrow may displease God (Malory 155). Yet the transformed and repentant Lancelot answers their charges directly and with eloquence. He tells them that his sorrow is not over the rejoicing of his sin, that is, the memory of his conjugal bliss with Guenevere. Rather in burying Guenevere beside Arthur, he is led to recall both the gentleness and greatness of each alone and both together. More importantly, he pub

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