Friday, February 26, 2016
The Wife of Bisclavret
I want to briefly talk about the wife of Bisclavret. Ever since discussion in class, I have been thinking about her betrayal. She nags and nags her husband until he relents and tells her his dark secrets and she, supposedly out of fear, takes his clothes. Her betrayal is purely selfish, because they have no children, she does not need to fear he would harm them, but the most telling line is when the wife starts to think, "she did not want to lie beside him any more." This admission that she does not want to have sex or even sleep next to her husband destroys her oath of marriage. But this comes from the same woman that promised to protect Bisclavret's secrets and that too fell flat. Once she realizes what she wants to do, she uses her body as a means to get a certain knight (one she knows would do anything for her) to do her bidding. To get his revenge, Bisclavret uses her vanity against her and bites her nose off her face. This is a wretched act of violence against her, but by taking away a very prominent feature he makes her wear her hideous personality. Her disfigurement is a way of showing that she is something to be avoided. It also says a lot about her replacement husband that stays with her and has children with her. This whole situation is a little disgusting to me and I find it fascinating that this all because she did not want to be with him after learning his secret. There are other ways out of a marriage.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Oh my, is that Anne Boleyn?! I agree with you completely, by the end of the story the wife's outer wretchedness matched her inner wretchedness. A pretty face can only hide an ugly personality for so long. I think what happened to her was fair, at no point did Bisclavret put her in harms way and yet she treated him like he had always been a monster towards, which is clearly not the case.
ReplyDeletePerhaps it was a marriage solely out of convenience, and once she discovered that she felt she couldn't even keep his secrets anymore, she decided to kick him to the curb in hopes of better prospects.
ReplyDeleteMen and women were (and are) viewed more highly if they are married, so maybe they chose to marry out of a pact to gain higher societal recognition and respect, and when the husband left she became worried that was all falling apart so wanted out.
Even if she was worried that their marriage was falling apart, he warned her he had a secret and she probably wouldn't like it. She got an answer and she still betrayed him. The fact that the wife only told her new boy toy and kept the secret suggests that she just wanted to humiliate him.
DeleteI like that you chose to concentrate on the wife for our post, and not the general summary/analysis of the man in the story. I totally agree that it was all her fault that her nose was bitten off, and this was possibly some karma coming back to "bite" her in the ass (pun intended :) ). She was a terrible wife for the decisions that she made and she got what was coming to her!
ReplyDeleteFor some reason, I felt really strongly against her, and that dislike never wavered. I feel weird for saying it, but I'm glad he took off her nose.
DeleteTake the next step here, Sara--what is Marie de France trying to say by giving the wife such obvious and despicable motives? What's her function as a character?
ReplyDeleteThe wife's function as a character seems to be a means to get Bisclavret closer to the king. Marie de France has the wife betray her husband and then nothing for a full year in the story, but in that time frame the husband is with the king, adored by all, but the wife is quietly living with the knight that took his clothes.
Delete