Guenever's Love Triangle

Nowadays you hear about people cheating on each other and think of it as nothing. In the time period T.H. White’s, The Once and Future King was set, it was a crime as sinful as killing a person. Guenever is a heartless and conniving woman, who gets away with ‘murder’, just because she is the Queen of England. Throughout the book, Guenever is characterized as weak and evil, because her decisions and behavior affect Arthur, Lancelot, and herself negatively.

To begin, Guenever manipulates Lancelot’s feelings. She is the majority of his problems and dilemmas. Lancelot tries not to betray Arthur’s trust and save his virtue, but his love for Guenever is making his decisions that much harder. She would tell him to “’Come back soon’” (340) and leave as she pleased. It affects Lancelot’s ability to maintain his integrity, because Guenever is confusing him, by giving him mixed signals. She makes him think about going against Christianity and the idea of chivalry, two things that he lives by. “You have won him, and you have broken him. What will you do with him next?” said Elaine (396). Lancelot is confused and he can’t focus on anything other than Guenever, no matter where he is. She is breaking him down emotionally, to the extent where he starts hating himself for loving her. Then, when Guenever finds out about Lancelot and Elaine sleeping together in her castle, she goes ballistic. “’Get out of my castle,’ screamed the queen at the top of her voice. ‘Never show your face in it again, your evil, ugly, beastlike face,’” (395). Having his beloved say this to him causes him to lose it, leading him to jump out of the window. No one knew what happened to him. A couple of years later when Lancelot was living with Elaine, the mother of his child...

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...y close friends. In all, twenty knights were killed, including Gaheris and Gareth, who were unarmed. Their deaths and the Guenever’s illegitimate relationship are grounds to begin a war on. This war eventually leads to King Arthur’s death. Guenever made Arthur’s life more difficult, rather than supporting him like a good wife should have.

Guenever not only affects Arthur and Lancelot negatively throughout their lives, but also numerous people around her. She is Arthur’s and Lancelot’s largest weakness. Guenever gets herself and the people around her into trouble, and makes their lives miserable in some way or another. Ultimately Guenever’s bad judgment and decisions made she was the source of a lot of problems and controversies. Cheating on someone you love was much more scandalous in that period of time than it is now, but it is still not the right thing to do.