Marie tells us that the “lai is name/ Guildeluec and Gualadun” because “it happened to the women” (21-25). Do you think the rest of the lai and the ending in particular correlates with this? How do you think agency is distributed between the three main characters or do they even have agency?
ENGL 365 | Medieval Object Ecologies
Dr. Myra Seaman | Fall 2014
I do feel like this line was slightly sexist, as if no blame can be placed on Eliduc for purposely growing his romantic relationship with another woman. The ending definitely does affect the women’s lives drastically, but I would say that agency is distributed between all 3 characters. Eliduc chooses to withhold the fact that he is married, and that choice allows his relationship with Guilliadun to grow where it might have otherwise died. Guilliadun chooses to leave her kingdom with Eliduc, believing he was unmarried, yet she also chooses to marry him in the end and let Guildeluec become a nun. Guildeluec really makes events change when she offers to become a nun in order to let the other two marry without legal scandal. Each of their choices dramatically affected the lives of the other two.
This line does in fact suggest the story will focus on the women, but in reading I think most readers will find that the focal point is Eliduc. The story solely follows Eliduc from his home with the “lord, / a king of Brittany” who loved him, into the journey to “the kingdom of Logres” and then back again. The portion of the lai where the women show themselves as more powerful actants is at the end. Eliduc’s wife follows him, acting in the assemblage of suspicion, to the chapel to find the girl. The wife “cried to the valet: ‘Hold her’” about the weasel running away with the reviving flower. It is the wife that saw the change and then took action. Then after reviving Guiliadun, the wife decides “[she] shall take the veil,” essentially allowing Eliduc and Guiliadun to be married. Eliduc has little agency in his fate here.