Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Friday, November 18, 2011
Identity Construction is Hard, But It's No Excuse to Pick on Sir Kay
I’m about to say something not enough people say with regularity: I love Sir Kay. Ever since he evolved (or devolved) into the brat of the Round Table, he’s served as a voice for readers who find the self-righteousness of the other knights tiresome. Kay grounds Malory’s tales by representing the real-world skepticism of chivalric ideals. He’s also a hilarious and handy plot device, as we’ve seen in the stories of Lancelot and Gareth. It fills me with wrothe when the aforementioned knights use him to promote their own reputations, partly because their disrespect for him is a blow to the common man; when they disregard him, they elevate themselves further into the realm of unattainable knightly perfection.
Now I’m going to contradict myself for a second, because I don’t believe it was Malory’s intention to make Lancelot’s interaction with Kay seem demeaning. I think when Lancelot rescues him from the three pursuing knights, it’s supposed to be a reflection of Lancelot’s selflessness. After all, their armor swap allows Kay to travel safely, and in theory, Lancelot’s donning of Kay’s armor and winning several jousts with it can knock Kay’s reputation up a notch. However, since nearly everyone realizes it’s not Kay who’s fighting, I’m left wondering what Lancelot’s motives are for disguising himself as Kay, of all people.
The only explanation I can come up with has to do with Arthurian knights’ almost maniacal desperation for adventure. Lancelot’s (and later, Gareth’s, when he fights with Kay’s shield) decision to temporarily fool people into thinking he’s the worst knight in Arthur’s court seems to be evidence of the slightly self-destructive quality of self-promotion. He, along with other knights who have dedicated themselves to chivalry, will never be satisfied with the amount of glory associated with his name, so he’s constantly searching for ways to make his achievements more difficult. It seems that Lancelot’s Kay-disguise is merely a challenge to himself – and an element of amusement to keep himself from getting bored with winning all the time.
This is also the only reason I can think of for the Arthurian trend of hiding one’s identity. This is what all the cool kids do in Gareth’s tale, and though its main function seems to be plot development, I think it’s also another sign of knights’ desire to make things more difficult for themselves in order to justify their accomplishments. Their life’s work is constructing reputations for themselves, so their names are powerful signifiers of their worth. So much so, in fact, that the knights who hide their names seem to be conflicted between their self-identity and their courtly identity, which they try to reconcile by disassociating themselves from the names they’ve built their reputations on, and testing their prowess without them. It’s as though their relentless search for adventure is a reflection of their relentless search for identity.
Or maybe they’re jealous of Kay’s wit and secretly want to be just like him.
Now I’m going to contradict myself for a second, because I don’t believe it was Malory’s intention to make Lancelot’s interaction with Kay seem demeaning. I think when Lancelot rescues him from the three pursuing knights, it’s supposed to be a reflection of Lancelot’s selflessness. After all, their armor swap allows Kay to travel safely, and in theory, Lancelot’s donning of Kay’s armor and winning several jousts with it can knock Kay’s reputation up a notch. However, since nearly everyone realizes it’s not Kay who’s fighting, I’m left wondering what Lancelot’s motives are for disguising himself as Kay, of all people.
The only explanation I can come up with has to do with Arthurian knights’ almost maniacal desperation for adventure. Lancelot’s (and later, Gareth’s, when he fights with Kay’s shield) decision to temporarily fool people into thinking he’s the worst knight in Arthur’s court seems to be evidence of the slightly self-destructive quality of self-promotion. He, along with other knights who have dedicated themselves to chivalry, will never be satisfied with the amount of glory associated with his name, so he’s constantly searching for ways to make his achievements more difficult. It seems that Lancelot’s Kay-disguise is merely a challenge to himself – and an element of amusement to keep himself from getting bored with winning all the time.
This is also the only reason I can think of for the Arthurian trend of hiding one’s identity. This is what all the cool kids do in Gareth’s tale, and though its main function seems to be plot development, I think it’s also another sign of knights’ desire to make things more difficult for themselves in order to justify their accomplishments. Their life’s work is constructing reputations for themselves, so their names are powerful signifiers of their worth. So much so, in fact, that the knights who hide their names seem to be conflicted between their self-identity and their courtly identity, which they try to reconcile by disassociating themselves from the names they’ve built their reputations on, and testing their prowess without them. It’s as though their relentless search for adventure is a reflection of their relentless search for identity.
Or maybe they’re jealous of Kay’s wit and secretly want to be just like him.
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