So I actually thought that this was a pretty heart-warming
tale. For once it had a man who didn’t jump to conclusions or make rash
decisions out of anger. Well, the King of Wales didn’t but the emperor sure
did. I mean, he cast his daughter out to sea with only her embroidery because
she wouldn’t marry him, and then burst into tears after realizing what he had
done.
But anyway, back to the king. He repeatedly ignored the tricks
that people were trying to play on him, and instead stood by Emaré and the decision he had made
to marry her. The first time this happened was when his own mother tried to
tell him that she was nothing more than a fiend in a noble robe. But he didn’t even
believe this for a second and instantly shot her down. In any other story he
probably would have actually cared about what his mother said and have at least
respected her, but not here.
The next time is more impressive
as he was tricked by a false letter. This time he did believe what was said
about Emaré birthing a devil, but instead of abandoning or executing her and
the child, he tells them to give her whatever she wanted. To me this is really surprising.
You can tell just how religious everyone is by all of the references in the
story, and you would think that such a devote disciple would have had a
stronger reaction to the news of his wife birthing a devil. But nope! He
bemoans his luck for a little bit but then decides that he loves his wife more
and won’t let this come between them. That is some strong devotion right there.
And then the ending was a sweet
little reunion that while nice, left me
thinking “there is no way that all three of them would go to Rome and
accidentally run into each other”. Still a good ending though, so whatever.
Commenting here because one of my group members didn't post:
ReplyDeleteI think you're one of the few in the class (me included) who didn't have a bad initial reaction to this story. I mean, yeah incest sucks, but it's not the central idea of the story. This is one of those stories that you have to look at it as a whole, rather than the individual parts. What's the overall message? I'm a firm believer in looking at the bigger picture, and I think that's easily overlooked in this story. Perhaps because we have a female lead that is a passive heroine? It's so easy to lay blame on those who do her wrong, but it really takes another level of thinking to realize that if she can forgive them, we can too.
Emare is a much better person than I am, because if my father tried to marry me and then exiled me via the ocean because I said no, I'd return and own the crap out of that kingdom; you know, assuming I survived. I thought Emare was a great protagonist even though I didn't necessarily understand how she could be so forgiving, and I interpreted her "passivity" as a silent strength in a world she didn't have much of a voice in, where she was subversive in her own way. The incest thing does bother me, not only that the Pope (somehow) allowed it, but that the father was never really punished for what he did. You can say that he regretted it all you want to, but that's not good enough for me.
ReplyDeleteI feel like you just summed up the story here, then gave a side note of opinion here and there, but overall did not go too much into the details. I felt that you generalized the tale too much (putting it in easier math terms, if the tale was an equation (y=2t^2 +2), the majority of your post was a derivative (y'=4t), with some known details of the integral (dy/dx = 3 when t=0)... I would have liked to have more details on the integral level, then just a summary). In other words, rather than just a summary and opinion of the tale, I would have loved to see opinions on the deeper meanings in the tale (such as why do they send people out to sea to die, do they want them to survive, etc.).
ReplyDelete