Hello Fellow Bloggers,
I wanted to do something a little more creative in this blog post. Yes, I know it's a tab longer than usual, but it's a fast read, I promise. I'm going to take a page out of Margaret Atwood's book and do a short story.
(A)Sir Gowther meets Margery Kempe. Gowther hates her, but she has a penchant for being good entertainment. Gowther grows quickly tired of her and kills her. Margery's husband, still being her husband is not too fond of the fact that his wife was just killed and gets revenge, killing Gowther.
(B) Sir Gowther meets Margery in passing at the market and runs into her again as he just begins his penitence. He listens to her screeching sobs as she fawns over his likeness to Jesus. This quickly irritates him and everyone in the market. One man says, "This young man has no tongue, weep not lady," to which Margery responds, "This creature finds this young man looks a lot like our sweet savior and God," *intense sobbing follows.* Because of all the sobbing, the crowd grows restless and attacks her in a very Julius Caesar way and kills her. In this process, Gowther also gets trampled in the mosh and dies.
(C) Sir Gowther has met Margery Kempe in passing multiple times, never before had there been an issue, but as Gowther is waiting for God to forgive him, war breaks out between the sultan and the king with whom he resides. While dressed in Black armor and fighting for the king, Gowther gets distracted, as many men do, by a woman weeping for the souls of them all in such a wailing pitch that it distracts Gowther. Both Gowther and Margery are slain because Gowther was distracted by Margery and Margery was on a battlefield, so I don't know why she didn't see it coming.
(D) Sir Gowther has achieved the White armor and Margery is coming into her sainthood, repenting for all their sins, they have never met before, but in this moment they do. Margery is making her way back from Jerusalem and Gowther is about to take over his father-in-law's kingdom, but he has made a trip home to rebuild some of the abbeys he destroyed. He meets Margery on the road and they chat for a long while. Gowther tells her his plan and she weeps tears of joy and makes a request of him. She wants to live a secluded saint's life and Gowther agrees to make accommodations for her. Unfortunately, Gowther and Margery are in the wrong place at the wrong time and both are taken out by arrows, because the hobbits want their shire back and have enlisted the help of Legolas and his army of elvish men. It all ends the same; in the end they are both killed in their pursuits of a holier life.
Both Gowther and Kempe wanted and achieved redemption in the eyes of the Lord. The question is who were they performing for? Did they do anything in the name of God or was it all in the name of their names? To bring themselves fame, no matter what is was for or the means it was achieved by, was their ultimate goal, did they win?
Ha! This is partially what I'm writing my final project on. Though mostly I'm concerning myself on the theme of food in their redemption/baptism. To answer your final questions, yes, I do believe they were truly performing their acts in the name of God. I believe they thought their theatrics were part of God's plan. Fame was probably an afterthought at best to both Sir Gowther and Margery Kempe.
ReplyDeleteAs I'm writing my paper, I do feel like the characters are very inflected, but I feel like, especially with Margery, the level of performance is just too big to ignore.
DeleteI adore you entirely! Before I changed topics for my final paper, I was going to write about Marge and Gowth. I think in order to please God they had to change themselves: the change was partly for God and honoring Him, and partly for themselves and being able to look at themselves in a better light. Thank you for your creative post!
ReplyDeleteThanks Kinzi! I feel so torn on wanting to put that element of they know they need to change in my paper or not, but it seems to be something that I need to address though.
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