Gender Roles In The Once And Future King

While some themes of The Once and Future King include maturity and knighthood, another prominent theme in the novel is gender roles, specifically female roles. Curiously, in many biographies of T.H. White’s life, it is stated that he did not have the “capacity for love,” and never married. This means that while gender inequality is prominent in White’s novel, he never had a close relationship with a female in his personal life. In the novel, The Once and Future King, many female figures are written to be stereotypical, mean women. Through his use of gender roles in The Once and Future King, T.H. White demonstrates the belief that women’s rights in the 1940-60s should mirror those of Medieval times.

Women’s rights in the early 1900s were

flexible, and allowed women to be more independent than in previous eras. Due in part to the beginning of World War Once in 1914. Able-bodied men were drafted to be soldiers, while women were forced to take on a new role in the workplace while continuing their traditional role of caring for the home and children.

As England recovered from the effects of the war, America’s stock market crashed in 1929, causing world trade and commerce to plummet. World War 2 began in 1939, causing more death, panic, and financial issues for twentieth century England (British Library). Due to these events, women’s roles changed from rearing children and taking care of the household to working outside the home, to not only support their families but the war effort as well. Carol Harris states that "During World War One, women volunteered for essential work in order for men to join the armed forces. Some 25 years later, as World War Two loomed, campaigns emphasized the need for women to volunteer in similar fashion." In other words, women were able to take jobs that were previously were reserved for men. Women openly adopting male jobs was crucial to the survival of early twentieth century England, because their economy would have crashed without an active workforce, as there would have been little to no English production. Next, Harris agrees when she writes, "With the onset of war, everything changed. Fathers perhaps joined the armed

forces, or were sent away to do vital civilian work, so mothers often ran the home alone - and had to get used to going out to work, as well. Young single women, often away from home for the first time, might be billeted miles.” Harris uses phrases like “Fathers perhaps joined the armed forces” and “mothers often ran the home alone…” to establish the fact that women had to take full responsibility over their families and essentially stepped into men's roles and therefore possess freedom rights. Women being introduced into the workplace was necessary because women needed to support their families, so they independently found jobs and ran the house while husbands, brothers, and fathers left to fight in the war.

In contrast to the freedom experienced by women in the early twentieth century, women living in Medieval England did not have many rights, and the rights they had were confining and rigid. The Bubonic Plague (also known as the Black Death) began to spread in 1348, and lasted for about two years, until 1350. The Black Death wiped out more than one third of England’s population. While one might think this would force more of the population to work, patriarchal structures were incredibly rigid, and women still did not have freedom. Sandy Bardsley agrees when she writes, "Women's status after the Black Death… was more confined by patriarchal structures... The number and sex of workers varied significantly from year to year. In five years out of ten, no female workers were employed..." The words “confined” and the phrase “In five years out of ten, no female workers were employed” constitute that Medieval women were not able to get jobs as easily as men could. Despite the Crusades war taking place around this time, women had their own standards to uphold. Not to mention that it was not “of a woman’s role” to work, the main focus for women during the Medieval period was to have children (preferably boys) and to be a pious and obedient wife. Working women did exist, but they were rare, and mainly lived in the lower classes. Later, Beardsley writes, "Women continued to work in the lowest-paid occupations, to occupy the lowest ranks within industries such as brewing, and to be excluded from full and equal membership of guilds." Bardsley’s point is that in the few instances that women could work, they worked low paid, miserable jobs. Female workers could not access the “full and equal membership of guilds.” (Meaning full access to certain wages, and social class that comes with working.) Not only were women prevented from the freedom to choose to work, they did not earn an equitable wage nor were their jobs pleasant.

In The Once and Future King, White portrays Morgause and Guenever to be cruel and stereotypical females. The novel tells a tale about Wart-- later known as Arthur, the future king of England-- and outlines the entirety of his life. Within the four sections of the book, White describes Arthur’s education, his path to becoming royalty, and his life to death as a king. Curiously, White focuses mostly on male characters. The female characters that he does include on are portrayed as stereotypical women, and are overbearing, vicious, and overall morally bad. To begin, Guenever is portrayed to be a very cliche woman. White writes about how she is beautiful, but tries to stay that way as she ages-- shown by her excessive use of makeup. One major stereotyped quality of women is that they are very self absorbed and vain. She is also very narrow-minded,self-centered, materialistic, and greedy. Guenever is also involved in a love triangle between Lancelot and Arthur, proving that White also depicts female characters to be morally bad. Having an affair was frowned upon in the Medieval period, so Guenever was described to be of poor moral character.

Women’s roles in The Once and Future King are very different than those of TH White’s time. The roles of women while White was alive were becoming more open and less restricted, and the roles of Medieval women were strict and did not allow women much freedom at all. This leads readers to ask the question: “Why did White portray women’s roles as they were in the Medieval period instead of portraying them as they were in the twentieth century?” Was White simply trying to accurately capture Medieval gender roles or was he trying to hint at a bigger picture?

White portrays women’s roles in The Once and Future King to be so different from those of the twentieth century because White obviously wanted twentieth century gender roles to mirror those of the Medieval time period.

It is cited in many sources that White led a lonely life and was homosexual. Sadie Stein even states this in her biography of TH White when she says "Townsend Warner speculates that White was “a homosexual and a sado-masochist,” ...In any case, he was profoundly alone; Townsend Warner wrote, “Notably free from fearing God, he was basically afraid of the human race.”" (Stein, The Paris review). Stein uses terms such as “homosexual,” and “basically afraid of the human race” to establish the fact that White was indeed very isolated and did not have many relations, especially those concerning women. Andrew Liptak adds in his article concerning TH White’s childhood, that White grew up with an “emotionally distant mother.” Growing up with no prominent female figure, and living an incredibly isolated life, White did not have much experience with women. This could explain why he tends to characterize women to be so harsh and stereotypical. Did White have some sort of animosity towards women? Because his mother was so distant, White grew up with a bad connotation of women. This could be the reason he illustrates so many women in the novel to be so

harsh.

The use of tone and mood when TH White describes various female characters proves that he believes twentieth century women’s roles should mimic those of the Medieval period. White tends to darken his tone when he talks about female characters. There are many instances when White’s tone in a section changes from confident and peaceful, to hostile and manipulative. These changes typically occur when a female is introduced in a scene. One example of this tone change would be when White describes Morgause’s house. While the beginning of this section is not negative, it remains serious and dark throughout the reading. White uses phrases like “curiously uncomfortable,” and “nuisance” to describe the space. (White 213) White also writes that “The year of their happiness ended with Arthur’s return-- and almost immediately collapsed in ruin, but not on account of the king… Elaine of Corbin had given birth to a fine son” (White 384). The tone at the beginning of the sentence is hopeful, as it says that Arthur has arrived home. However, the tone becomes almost angry, and increasingly dark as the narrator discusses Elaine's new baby. By using this harsh, gloomy language, White manages to give the reader a grim feeling when he/she is reading about female characters in the book. He probably used this bleak language to characterize the female characters and prove that they were not good people in his eyes. By depicting female characters to be so bad, white is able to stereotype the females he writes about. By stereotyping women in his books, White is able to illustrate his point that gender roles of the medieval period should mirror those of the twentieth century.

Although the topic of reducing women’s rights and de-modernizing women’s roles may seem trivial, it is in fact crucial to recognize the errors of the idea in terms of today’s society. This is because women that have overcome the barriers of gender stereotypes are incredibly important to today’s society and help it work as a well-oiled system. While powerful figures, like the author, TH White, can portray the idea of suppressing women’s roles in a much stronger way, society today should learn from this bad idea. Community should learn that women are a crucial aspect to today’s life and culture.