Evolution of the Werewolf: Lay of the Werewolf

813 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Essay on symbolism in literature

In “The Lay of the Werewolf,” by Marie de France, the main character Bisclavaret is betrayed by his wife. Bisclavaret had a secret that he never told anyone before, including his wife. He would go away for three days every week and would never say where he was going. This upset his wife; assuming the worse that Bisclavaret was cheating on her. She cried in his arms begging him to stop leaving her and her mourning convinced Bisclavaret to share his secret with her. The secret he spoke was that he had to leave for those three days because he turned into a werewolf. He left all civilization so while he was in the werewolf stage he would not hurt anyone. He also told her about the secret hallow stone near the chapel where he would leave his clothes. If his clothes were not there when his three days were over he would be unable to return back to his human form. After he revealed his secret he kissed her goodbye, hoping to see her after the three days. What Bisclavaret did not know was that his wife was cheating on him with a noble knight. Once Bisclavaret left; his wife told her new lover Bisclavaret’s secret and he stole the clothes from the stone; trapping Bisclavaret in his werewolf form. Bisclavaret mourned over the events that had happened, but soon was blessed with living with the king and serving as his protector. He served his king better than any other knight. He sought his revenge on his wife and her new lover when they arrived at the castle to visit the king. Bisclavaret attacked his wife, ripping off her nose, and her new husband. One of the wise counselors approached the king explaining why Bisclavaret would do these things to the King’s guests. The wife admitted to everything and they were banished from the land of Britt...

... middle of paper ...

...a is immediately shown. Bisclavaret told the closest person in his life his secret and she betrayed him. Another life message in this story is that the normal people in life may not be the best. This is because Bisclavaret is far from a normal person or animal, however, he is the best friend and protector the king could ask for. He is better than any knight or normal animal on the Earth. The last message that was portrayed in the story is that cheaters never win. The wife literally cheated on her husband and her new knight husband was the cause of her cheating. They were punished by being banished from their homeland and living with only each other. The story has many different messages within Stypczynski’s system and in life. Bisclavaret touches many different aspects of life and allows everyone to connect or relate to messages and events that happened to him.

Show More
Related

  • The Aftermath of the Holocaust in Art Spiegelman’s Maus Volumes I and II

    1130 Words  | 3 Pages

    Vladek’s controlling ways leads him to invent a life that he never had. Vladek wields his reality by reinventing his past life. When Vladek tells Art about his marriage to Anja, he portrays his marriage like a fairy tale. Vladek says, “We were both very happy, and lived happy, happy ever after” (Spiegelman 2:136). He reinvents his past life after the end of the Holocaust as free of woe. Correspondingly, he loses himself...

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Lessons For Women By Bisclavret

    970 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the beginning of the story, the wife is a mouse. She is doubtful about their relationship and worries that Bisclavret doesn’t love her. When she finds out that he is a werewolf, she becomes a tiger, betraying him and leaving him for someone else. She tries to figure out “how she might get rid of him” (101), so she goes for his weakness; she hides his clothes so that he may never be able to transform back into a human, and “Bisclavret is betrayed, ruined by his own wife” (125-126). This shows how “if love and proper relationship both be destroyed then husband and wife are divided”. The wife’s mistrust and betrayal of her husband causes their love for each other to falter, thus ruining their relationship. Bisclavret is subject to living in the woods on his own with the fear of being hunted or killed, and his wife is with some other man. They are divided, and eventually brought together again by fate, but at that point, Bisclavret has turned into a weak monstrosity. After a year of living in the woods, the king finds him and takes him in. He holds a court and his wife, as well as her new husband, are there and Bisclavret, seeking revenge, attacks her. He lunges at her and “tears the nose off her face” (235). All this time, he’s been kind

    Read More

  • The Wife's Story Rhetorical Analysis

    967 Words  | 2 Pages

    The author tugs on the reader’s heart strings more than once through this story. At the very beginning of the piece the reader feels empathetic towards the wife when she explains how her husband was good to her and their children. She is trying to prove to the reader that her husband was a good being and that whatever happened to him was not deserved. The reader also feels empathetic when the children are described as becoming fearful of their father. The father tries to blame the fear in his children on sleep-walking, but the reader knows that the children are genuinely afraid. As the piece progresses, more than likely the reader is feeling concern for the husband just as the wife is. The truth behind the story is foreshadowed rather early in the piece, but it is hard to pick out until the piece has been read all the way through. The wife mentions that whatever is wrong with her husband must be running through his blood because he always acts strangely in “the dark of the moon”. This phrase may not make sense at first, however in the next sentence it states “he gets up because he can’t sleep and goes out into the glaring sun…” (Guin,1982, p. 28). This shows that the family sleeps during daylight hours which is not so for most human families. From this the reader can conclude that this story is not about a human family but rather a different kind of family. As previously discussed, the truth is revealed through Guin’s use of imagery on page 28. The family is actually a family of werewolves. This means that the transformation that is occurring in the husband is from werewolf to human. After the husband was killed the wife was left in shock. She says that “[she] went up close because [she] thought if the thing was dead the spell, the curse, must be done, and [her] husband could come back-alive, or even dead, if [she] could only see him, [her] true love in his true form.” (Guin,1982,

    Read More

  • Racial, Social, and Symbolic Elements in Desiree's Baby by Kate Chopin

    1175 Words  | 3 Pages

    Leading towards the end of the story, Armand builds a bonfire on the pyre. The bonfire symbolized Armand getting rid of all his memories of his wife and child. Throughout this paper I have shared Chopin’s use of symbolic elements by discussing symbols of racism, social class distinction, and the symbolic elements involving the difference between the gender roles. At the end of the story Armand reads a letter from his mom to his father. Armand finds out that his mother is from the African descent after; he has lost his marriage and family.

    Read More

  • Gender and Evil in Crime and Punishment and The Master and Margarita

    2109 Words  | 5 Pages

    The conflict between good and evil is one of the most common conventional themes in literature. Coping with evil is a fundamental struggle with which all human beings must contend. Sometimes evil comes from within a character, and sometimes other characters are the source of evil; but evil is always something that the characters struggle to overcome. In two Russian novels, Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment and Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita, men and women cope with their problems differently. Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment and the Master in The Master and Margarita can not cope and fall apart, whereas Sonya in Crime and Punishment and Margarita in The Master and Margarita, not only cope but pull the men out of their suffering.

    Read More

  • World Lit Essay

    1048 Words  | 3 Pages

    Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment incorporates the significance of murder into the novel through a multitude of levels. The act of killing is not only used to further the plot point of the novel, but also offers insight to the reader of Raskolnikov’s ideology and psyche. This is portrayed through both his initial logic and reasoning behind the plotting of the crime, as well as through his immediate and long term reactions after killing Alyona Ivanovna. The emotional and physical responses instilled in Raskolnikov after killing Alyona Ivanovna as well as his justification for doing so helps illustrate his utilitarianism by offering accurate insight into the character’s moral values. These reactions also serve to show the instability of Raskolnikov’s character due to his changing emotions from being completely justified as the ubermensch to showing a sense of great regret. By including the act of killing, Dostoevsky further develops Raskolnikov’s character, and provides another level of detail to readers concerning his ideology and beliefs prior to his actions.

    Read More

  • Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment

    1270 Words  | 3 Pages

    First, Dostoevsky gives the reader the character, Raskolnokov. He is the main character, whom Fyodor uses to show two sides of people their admirable side and their disgusting side. He loves Raskolnokov, which is why Fyodor uses Raskolnokov’s point of view throughout the whole novel. Personally, Fyodor dislikes some of his qualities but understands that all people are plagued with some bad traits, and that Raskolnokv is trying to make emends for some of his wrong doings, i.e. the murder of the pawnbroker and her sister. He knows that what he did was wrong and is willing to suffer for his crime, and he does throughout the whole book with his constant depression. Dostoesky believes in punishment for your crimes, this is why he shows Raskolnokov suffering through most of the novel, to show his great love for penance. Dostoevsky likes the kind giving nature of people; this is why he portrays the main character as a kind, gentle, and giving, person. Often, Raskolnokov thinks only of others benefits such as when he helped Katerina by giving her all his money for Marmelodov, as well as his caring about what happens to his sister with her marriage to Luzhin. Raskolnokov hates Luzhin’s arrogant and pompous attitude, which reflects Dostoevsky’s animosity of the same qualities in people in the real world.

    Read More

  • St. Petersburg: The Myth and the City

    647 Words  | 2 Pages

    ...s tale turns into an attack on the ridiculous, heartless nature of Russian society – especially Russian in civil service. Gogol portrays the trivialness of this through the use of distinct contrasts, mostly between how the poor official in this tale sees his prized overcoat, and how his fellow workers view it, and him, with scorn and mocking laughter. It is not a pleasant tale, and there is no happy ending. But it is effective in how well it presents the absurdities of life at this time in St. Petersburg.

    Read More

  • The Czechoslovakian Man and Meursault in The Stranger, by Albert Camus

    1006 Words  | 3 Pages

    Within The Stranger, Albert Camus includes a passage concerning the story of the Czechoslovakian man. Camus employs this passage not only to foreshadow Meursault’s final fate, but also to emphasize Meursault’s antihero status by creating foils between Meursault and the Czechoslovakian man. The Czechoslovakian man has a brief appearance in the story which plays a large part in Meursault’s emergence as a dynamic character. Meursault’s emotionless demeanor throughout the story distinguishes him as a flat character, at face value, at least. Once he enters prison, he must find ways to pass time, and one of those ways becomes recalling how to remember. The story of the Czechoslovakian man turns into one of his means of remembering, as he reads and rereads this story, memorizing details and forming actual opinions. These shifts within Meursault represent his first real commitment to any single entity, even if that entity exists only to pass time.

    Read More

  • Kate Chopin's The Story of an Hour

    795 Words  | 2 Pages

    Throughout the story Chopin uses many ironic instances and symbols to illustrate the meaning of several major aspects of the story, we learn a lot more of the main character Mrs. Mallard and we come to an understanding that she did not recognize a world outside of herself.

    Read More

  • CAP

    1593 Words  | 4 Pages

    Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment explores the themes of guilt and the consequences of committing immoral actions. Of all the deep, thought-provoking concepts put forth in Crime and punishment, the idea that guilt can be an adequate punishment more valid than any punishment executed by society as a whole is the most far reaching and supported by the novel. Crime and Punishment follows Rodian Raskolnikov’s life from just a few days before he commits two brutal murders to when he confesses his crimes and is convicted and sentenced to several years in prison. Initially, Rodian had successfully gotten away with the murder of two people. Raskolnikov’s guilt-driven madness has given him an immunity and even investigators he confesses to think he couldn’t be guilty. As a result, his guilt continues to feed on his conscience to the point where he is constantly miserable. Raskolnikov’s true punishment is the futility of his attempt to escape the guilt of his actions without confessing and feeling adequately punished.

    Read More

  • Guinevere Character Analysis

    598 Words  | 2 Pages

    ‘Ah lady’, said Launcelot,’why have you betrayed me?’” (pages 119-120) The damsel lied by pretending to lose her hawk so that the knight could slay Launcelot.

    Read More

  • The Depiction of Male/Female Relationships in Tolstoy's War and Peace

    1916 Words  | 4 Pages

    Pierre Bezhukov, the illegitimate son and eventual heir to his father’s massive fortune, is not well-suited for the high society of Russia. Intelligent and honest, Pierre is one of the few characters in the upper echelons of society that is genuine. As a major character, Pierre experiences one of the most marked character developments in the novel. Although his kind and decent nature remains relatively unchanged throughout the story, Pierre is occasionally induced into a rage, one of which is actually directed against his first wife, Helene.

    Read More

  • The Werewolves of Society

    2828 Words  | 6 Pages

    The Werewolves of Society Over the past several hundred years, werewolves have been an important part of Western cultures. Werewolves have appeared in blockbuster movies and been the subject of countless books and stories. Werewolves are dark and powerful creatures that terrify us on multiple levels. While they are some of the most violent and merciless monsters that horror has to offer, there is something about the werewolf that we can identify with.

    Read More

  • Portrayal of Man in Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov

    1212 Words  | 3 Pages

    Debauchery, dueling, infidelity, orgies, and even monastery life are all used to help Fyodor Dostoevesky define his characters in The Brothers Karamazov. At the beginning of the novel, the reader becomes filled with contempt for a few members of the Karamazov family, yet filled with admiration for others. The legitimate members of the Karamasov family each represent a separate aspect of human character, which is applicable to society. In some ways the characters resemble separate factions and cliques of society that most often argue, but together can be productive. This is shown not by direct implication, but rather the reader discovers the fact on their own by becoming infuriated at the stupidity of the Karamazov men. This anger leads to the realization that in many ways, they themselves are in some ways similar to them.

    Read More

More about Evolution of the Werewolf: Lay of the Werewolf

Open Document