The story of the life of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table is the core of Le Morte d’Arthur. A variety of colorful characters and circumstances are interspersed throughout the story illustrating the significant moments in the history of King Arthur’s empire. The selected excerpts begin at book twenty whereby sir Mordred and Sir Agravaine are accusing Sir Launcelot of treason by having sexual affair with Queen Guenever. Sir Gawaine attempts to persuade Mordred and Agravaine to abandon their plan of informing the King about the sexual relationship between his queen and Launcelot. However, in order to fulfill the central themes of the tales which are an ideal quest, identity, and destiny, Mordred and Agravaine went ahead and informed the King. To support their allegations, they arranged a trap with the blessings of the king to catch Launcelot and the queen. This paper attempts to literary analyze this episode in a chapter of book twenty because its outcome determined the destiny of the main characters in the tale.
The trap was arranged such that the king was to go on a hunting trip and later send a message to the queen that he will not come back that evening. This would allow the queen enough time to engage with Launcelot. In that state, Mordred and Agravaine in the company of other twelve knights would bust the queen and Launcelot together in the queen’s chambers and order Launcelot to surrender. He would be arrested and handed over to the king so as to be accorded appropriate punishment. Launcelot had found favor upon the eyes of the king due to his courage and skills; he had saved the king and queen as well as his knights many times from captivity. Mordred and Agravaine hoped to gain such favor through successfully charging Launcelot with treason.
The plan did not materialize as planned because Launcelot managed to escape rather than surrendering leaving behind a number of casualties. This event marked the beginning of the fall of Arthur’s kingdom as well as meeting with his destiny. Launcelot killed many knights who the king identified with, most of them as his nephews. Elimination of individuals who were in lineage to inheriting the kingdom meant that all that King Arthur had worked for would account for nothing. His kingdom would be inherited by a stranger who would be at liberty to either honor Arthur’s values or choose not to honor. King Arthur was faced with unkind destiny whereby it would charge him as the king who destroyed the achievements of his forefathers in the kingdom out of his queen betrayal.
By agreeing to go on hunting as advised by Mordred and Agravaine symbolizes a weak king who could not institute his own mechanisms of finding out the truth. Since Launcelot was his servant, the king could have organized his own trap to nab him with his queen without raising suspension. Such trap could have worked out perfectly without casualties or giving Launcelot a chance to escape. It could not have resulted in revenge fights that followed which condemned the kingdom to its ultimate collapse. It could also have earned the king great honor among his servants because it could have shown that he is able to use his own wisdom to solve the problems facing the kingdom.
King Arthur exposes his authority to his knights whereby Launcelot defeats them easily and escapes setting the stage for endless fights which culminated in the fall of the kingdom. If King Arthur was in the palace at the time of trapping Launcelot and Queen Guenever, Launcelot could have probably surrendered to his master as opposed to surrendering to knights whom he knew he could easily defeat. This act of Arthur symbolizes a king who would blindly listen to advise without having a second thought given that he knew the ability of Launcelot. In fact, Launcelot could have easily overthrown King Arthur in his absence.
The inability of King Arthur to wisely deal with Launcelot-Guenever sexual affair resulted in his ultimate humiliation in the hands of Launcelot. King did not only lose his kingdom but also his family. Mordred was aiming at causing a rift between the king and Launcelot so that in the absence of both, he could become the king. Mordred forged the papers to show that his father, King Arthur died in the battle revenging the deaths caused by Launcelot on his nephews. Consequently, Mordred became the king by capitalizing on his father’s weaknesses. He easily blinded his father to fight Launcelot knowing that he could not win against Launcelot.
Work Cited
THOMAS, SIR. LE MORTE D'ARTHUR. JM DENT " SONS Limited: LONDON, 1923.
