Photo by Flickr user ideath. Used under a Creative Commons license.
I mentioned in the last post that I’d had such a relaxing day I’d forgotten to post anything. Well, part of the relaxation of having nothing to say means it’s fun to plop down on the couch to read a book I always meant to read to my children back when they were too young to read for themselves. (A copy having mysteriously shown up on a shelf in the intervening years.)
The book being T. H. White’s 1939 classic The Once and Future King. Which I vaguely remembered from my own childhood…
...but may have somehow confused with the Disney movie The Sword in the Stone... but I digress.
Anyway, right there on page one, barely halfway down the page, was something eminently post-worthy.
The governess had red hair and some mysterious wound from which she derived a lot of prestige by showing it to all the women of the castle, behind closed doors. It was believed to be where she sat down, and to have been caused by sitting on some armour at a picnic by mistake. Eventually she offered to show it to Sir Ector, who was Kay’s father, had hysterics and was sent away. They found out afterwards that she had been in a lunatic hopital for three years.
Hmm. Some sort of wound. From sitting on something. That she wanted to show to Sir Ector. And was sent away for being hysterical. Hmmm…
See also The Job Nobody Wanted for more about “hysteria.” See also “no-sex” class.
See also that in 1940 when the book was written an English (or, for that matter, American, Canadian, Australian…) husband could still have his wife committed to an asylum on his say-so. So it’s not just about deepening and enriching an ancient myth with day-to-day narrative.
Could be an interesting read. Who knew?
Submitted by 2547 (not verified) on Mon, 2008-12-01 23:30.
The Sword in the Stone is the first book in The Once and Future King, so you weren't confused concerning the Disney movie. It was a great read, especially White's creative inventions, such as Merlin method of education: turning young Wart into different animals to parody some of the theories and belief's of White's own time and letting Merlin grow young by moving backwards in time (an original method of foreshadowing if there ever was one).
But the part you quoted about the unfortunate governess and her hysterics made me reflect that the book was not free from misogyny (nor was I when I first read it over thirty years ago). I still remember that opening scene from the second book (SPOILER ALERT!), in which White introduces the reader to Queen Morgause. The sorceress has bound a black cat that will be thrown alive into a boiling cauldron so that Morgause can extract a bone that has the power to render a man invisible. The cat has stopped struggling and is resigned to its horrid fate for Morgause is compassionless. After the cat is boiled, Morgause looses patience sifting through the steaming mess of fur and skin for the elusive bone and discards the creature's remains without a thought of remorse.
However, in Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur, Morgause is not portrayed as a scheming sorceress, nor is she aware that she is Arthur's half-sister when she has sex with the young king and conceives his nemesis, Mordred, She is also portrayed by Mallory as a caring mother, not a neglectful one, as White paints her. In her essay, Morgause, Emily Rebekah Huber states,
And if you have not done so, I heartily recommend that you read Marion Zimmer Bradley's The Mists of Avalon to hear the other side of the story.