Gwenyvere's Diary

Gwenyvere's Diary

As I read I was constantly shocked by the actions of Gwenyvere; a character that, in my childhood, I was lead to believe to be an almost tragic lover of two men was instead acting like a fickle, jealous, and almost mentally deranged woman. But, being inherently curious about the reasons for the actions of people, I began to ask questions, the most important of which was... why? Why was she acting the way she was? What was going through her head to create such instable actions?

From there I went on to think about the life of a medieval noblewoman to hopefully find some clue as to the method behind her madness, or if there were no method, the reason. What I know is that a nobleman's daughter of the time were used like pawns in games of kings, dukes, and counts, but the same could also be said for the sons. So I thought deeper into the character of Gwenyvere .

I imagined that she was real and sitting before me, and I looked at her as I would look at and other woman coming to me to confide in me their problems. While hers are much more intense than any I have ever given advise about, I looked objectively at her situation.

Gwenyvere is a spoiled noblewoman made queen. At the time of her and King Arthur's marriage, no mentions of her feelings toward him were added, though Arthur's feelings were made abundantly clear. Not only is this indicative to the fact that she had no say in the matter of their marriage, it also suggests a certain level of foreboding. Who in their right mind would deny their king?

So Gwenyvere is made queen, something that she was never trained for, and Arthur ends up leaving her at the castle to handle things elsewhere. Assuming that Gwenyvere is not in love with Arthur (which would not be a far cry), being left alone by him to do a job that she is not trained to handle would most likely put the poor girl rather highly on the stress scale.

Because there is no contextual proof of any affair by Arthur (which, honestly, would not have been rare had the situation been reality) I have no reason to add any assumed adultery on his part. Therefore I skip straight ahead to her falling in love with Lancelot.

Lancelot, her husband's best friend, and most trusted knight! She, a woman who was not allowed to choose the man that she married, falls in love with him. And so their relationship grows. Along with adultery comes guilt, an emotion that eats at sanity, and jealously, another emotion that eats at sanity. Everywhere she looks she sees deception. Everywhere she looks she sees betrayal.

So, of course Lancelot is cheating on her as well, though not knowingly. Gwenyvere falls over the deep end at the same time that Lancelot does, and later on ends up making situations even more muddled than they need to be, all to keep up the affair she is holding with her lover. People die; people are hurt, all in the name of