Friday, October 14, 2011

King Mark

King Mark was certainly an interesting character. I definitely feel pity for him throughout the story since he is a very innocent character. King Mark never did anything wrong by the story we know yet he is betrayed by both his most loyal vassal and his wife. Furthermore, although the 4 traitors were right, throughout the story he seems to be at the whims of their suggestions. It is definitely interesting to consider the tale from his perspective.

3 comments:

sara pendleton said...

Poor guy should never have married... HOWEVER I disagree with you on one point; he did throw Iseult to the Lepers so I don't think he's blameless. He's piteable, it's clearly not his fault he in his situation HOWEVER after throwing Iseult to the Lepers, he took her back pretty quickly (almost because she was his property.) If he was angry enough to send her to be gang-raped by Lepers (in the name of Love?), why did he take her back so quickly? I feel like he's only jelously gaurding Iseult like she was a pile of treasure. What's weird is he has such affection for Isuelt AND Tristain early on and he ocilated between extremes of hatred and love. Unless he's bipolar, these murderous mood-swings seem sort of off character. I don't think he's perfect, he's definatly some major flaws, anger being one of them.

Ravin S said...

Yes Shaina his perspective is very interesting, but you also have to remember that romances during this time period were usually heard by women. They would've sided with Tristan because he was the knight that was doing all this stuff to be with Iseult. The "courtly love" aspect forces the reader to consider Tristan as the hero and Mark as the enemy. Nevertheless, Mark still was innocent and I would've been very angry if I was in his position.

mere said...

King Mark was by far my favorite character in Tristan and Iseult. I found him the most intriguing. Maybe it was that one moment he would do something loving and just, and then in another moment he would turn around and do something heartless, like giving Iseult up to the lepers. I wish that I could have known more about his character, but of course, in this genre of literature, that's not really possible.