Analysis Of Lancelot: The Superhero Of King Arthur's Court

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Lancelot, The Superhero of King Arthurs Court by Nicholas W. Harding-Bradley

This composition project represents my own work in accordance with Ignatian values and the expectation of Bellarmine College Preparatory.
- Nicholas Harding Bradley

King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table
Mr. Bliss
3rd Period
15 May 2014
Throughout my childhood I was brought up in a society where I was surrounded by stories of extraordinary people with extraordinary powers doing extraordinary things. These people are referred to as “superheroes”. They perform phenomenal acts of bravery and strength, they have a strict code of morals and they are willing to endure physical pain and risk in order to help everyday people. For these among many other reasons I began, like many others, to idolize these heroes. However throughout my mid-childhood I began to hear stories on the news of everyday people saving lives by pulling people back from the oncoming trains, by running into flaming buildings and by other acts of bravery in the face of danger. I began to understand that you did not need extraordinary powers to do good in the world, you just needed to think selflessly and be brave in times of danger. In our society, heroes are more often seen in movies and comics than in the news, in the time of King Arthur’s court these people were not referred to as heroes, they were referred to as perfect knights. Lancelot aspires to fulfill the role of the perfect knight in Arthur’s court in the same way that many children aspire to become superheroes. He is undoubtedly the greatest and most powerful knight in Arthur’s court, however his immoral love of Guinevere causes his priorities to crumble and his purity to be poisoned. His failure to fu...

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... person committing everyday acts of bravery and selflessness without the aid of superhuman abilities. Our society has been so corrupted by stories of great people doing great things that the average member of our community no longer believes that they can be a catalyst for change. If we begin to each improve ourselves and agree to together help fix our society then modern day versions of Lancelot will not have to exist to ride in and fix everyone’s problems. The key to our future is relying on our community as much as our community relies on us and if this had been the case in King Arthur’s court then the fall of Camelot would have been avoided.

Works Cited
Monty Python. Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
Mark Twain. A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court. Kindle Edition
Chretien de Troyes. The Knight of the Cart. Kindle Edition

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