Percival 1

Question 1)

Chretien emphasizes a theme of worthiness in the prologue by comparing he court (his intended audience) to Alexander the Great. The latter’s name would initially imply that he is exemplary, and Chretien remarks in his opening statements that he tells this tale “for the most worthy man in all the empire of Rome… whom surpasses Alexander, who they say was so Great” (381). Almost the entirely of the rest of the prologue explains all of Alexander’s “vices and wickedness” in comparison to his virtuous audience. Rather than simply serving as a way by which the author flatters his audience, this theme of supposed greatness falling short in comparison with the royal court seems to foreshadow the contrast between great knights and the imitation of knighthood (a popular theme in Chretien’s stories). This theme harkens back to The Knight with the Lion (Yvain), in which Yvain had to learn to become a real knight instead of a worthless pretender. (This theme of true worth and “vainglory” is repeated when Chretien speaks of the left and right hands.) What is interesting about The Story of the Grail however, is the that Chretien gives his name unabashedly to the audience as opposed to hiding it before the main character of the tale is worthy of associating with him. Rather, the name of the main character is not initially given. He states in his opening lines, “Chretien sows and casts the seed of a romance that he is beginning, and sows it in such a good place that it cannot fail to be bountiful” (381), yet the main character seems to fall short of someone the author might ask the audience to put their faith in. This makes the character all the more interesting, in that he must build up his worth as the tale goes on.

Question 2)

Unlike every other story by Chretien that we have read to far, Percival is completely unacquainted with knighthood – hidden from it in fact – because his mother is afraid of losing her son if he becomes a knight. Though the mother’s portrayal of knighthood is foreboding, the knights in the Waste Forest seem to serve a worthy example of knighthood when Percival meets them. While the knights fulfill the audiences expectations of what knights must be like, Percival serves as a direct contrast to this, so it is ironic, if not altogether surprising, when it is revealed that he comes from a line of great knights. When Percival sets of on an adventure to become knighted, the audience cannot help but compare him to the knights that put this very idea into his head. In this, Chretien shines a different light on the kind of people who try to become knights, disassociating the occupation from perfection.

Question 3)

The mother’s misery at the thought of her son’s discover of knighthood and his subsequent departure goes remarkably unnoticed by Percival, who seems entirely too self-centered or ignorant to think much of anyone but himself (as was seen in the previous scene with the knights, where he could not answer their questions because he was so preoccupied with things that captured his interest more). Though the mother’s warnings of knighthood may have led to trepidation in any other person, Percival insists upon departing after she reveals his lineage to him. She then gives him advice on how to behave as a worthy knight, emphasizing how he should treat the women he meets on his adventures, and though this advice seemed good and simple enough to her (as she is familiar with the ways of knighthood), Percival miserably misinterprets her words (when he doesn’t completely ignore them). Though Percival tells his mother that he understands what she has said to him, he gallops away from her after he sees her faint upon his departure, and unwittingly torments the next person woman he meets. Percival harkens back to the characters that Chretien makes a mockery of in his earlier tales of worthy vs. unworthy knights.