First, he is ashamed of the untamed animal side of himself. He tried to hide it from his wife and even said telling her any information about where he goes would put her in danger. He also remains loyal and well behaved when the King takes him in as some kind of guard dog. The last reason I believe he is a decent human is that he was ashamed to change into a human in front of the king. These three examples made me believe that he was pretty tame and almost domestic for someone that was suppose to be this big scary monster.
I believe that his wife was the true "werewolf" of this story. She was a truly horrible person. First, she went behind her husbands back and plotted against him in order to get rid of him. She took the only thing that kept him human which was his clothes. She also basically prostituted herself out to the knight so that he would do her evil bidding for her. She is just a all around horrible human and has more animal like characteristics than Bisclavret who is in fact a werewolf. I find this whole poem highly ironic since the main character who was supposed to be the bad guy according to the norms was actually the nicest and most humanistic character in this piece.
What are your thoughts??
I also wanted to add this picture that I found of when Bisclavret met the king. I think this can put into perspective how people viewed werewolves at this time
Danielle,
ReplyDeleteEspecially after the discussion in class today, although his wife does not have the werewolf "tendencies" I can agree that his wife is much the villain and the beast in this poem. She's does more vivacious and evil things more than anyone throughout the story! I see Bisclavairt as the hero in the story and his wife the evil beast and should be treated as so.