A Breton lay is a fairy tale of the Medieval times. Much like our fair tales today, they had to do with witches, demons, fairies, etc. This particular fairy tale is about a werewolf, which is still an iconic creature in many fairy tales and monster movies of today. The author, Marie de France, was a woman, which wasn't a common occurrence of the day since women were treated as property rather than people. Women were in no way equal to men in Medieval times. According to the introductory material, the clothes don't always make the man. In the world of beasts, man is the only beast that covers up their nakedness with clothes, which is why whenever he becomes a man again, he has to have his clothes. I myself am not too familiar with the
Harry Potter series, but I believe that it shows the importance of clothes just like this story whenever two of the characters transform into a werewolf and a grim, a dog-like creature. When they are the beasts, they are naked, but whenever they are the men they are clothed. It shows the difference between a beast and a man.
What is beast? What is human? Both of these questions are shown greatly in this Breton lay. We have a man who turns into a beast, betrayed by his wife, and taken in by the king. We have a knight who along with the wife prevent the man from becoming human again. This question really comes down to what aspects of man make a man man. From the good side of man, the beast of our story is more of a human being, but from the bad side of man, the wife and knight are more human. Both good and bad qualities make up a man, so it is hard to say which one shows humankind more. Although if I must choose, I think man is ultimately good so in this case the werewolf is more of a man than the knight and wife. He is open and honest. An example is when he finally tells his wife the truth and even when he is before the king he attacks the knight and wife.The other two are deceitful. An example of this is when she finally gets him to tell her and then decides to betray him by stealing the clothes. This is why i would view the beast as more human than the other two.
I believe the significance of her nose is to show just how ugly she really was on the inside. As humans, noses can make you beautiful or ugly, which explains why people nowadays have plastic surgery to fix certain parts of their bodies like their nose. It was a sign of beauty. Since she no longer had her nose, it showed her as ugly. This is what I though about it.
I must say that reading this story reminded me greatly of Samson and Delilah. In the Biblical story, Delilah does just what his wife did to him in
Bisclavret. She nags him until he finally tells her his secret and the details of it. I must say, I believe Marie de France must have read the story of Samson when she wrote this because both stories are really similar. All in all I enjoyed reading this fairy tale. As you can tell from the pictures, I like werewolves.
You can be SURE Marie de France knew the story of Samson and most every other Bible story as well. 15 points
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