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Recommended: The values of chivalry
Acts of loyalty were very important in the times of King Arthur and the middle ages. Loyalty is still reflected in the movies and books of today. The book Summer Sisters, by Judy Blume (Summer Sisters), and the movie My Sister’s Keeper, directed by Nick Cassavetes (New Line Cinema) are two excellent examples of how loyalty is portrayed. Knights during the middle ages were very chivalrous. Chivalry is the behavior expected of noblemen during Medieval Times, demanding honor, generosity, loyalty, and courage (Answers). Loyalty was a big part of being chivalrous during the middle ages. Loyalty is described as being faithful to your commitments or obligations (Random House). Summer Sisters and My Sister’s Keeper can both tie into how the element of loyalty is still reflected in the works of literature and movies of today.
Summer Sisters was written in 1998 by Judy Blume (Summer Sisters). It is about two girls who spend every summer together from their twelfth birthday until their eighteenth birthday (Book Browse). The book is based around two main characters, Caitlin Somers and Victoria Leonard, or Vix. It starts off by Caitlin inviting Victoria to spend the summer with her at her father’s beach house at Martha’s Vineyard (Summer Sisters). From this summer, until their senior year in high school, they spend every summer together. Victoria is very shy, but intelligent, while Caitlin is more wild, flirtatious, and manipulating. Throughout the years the two girls grow closer (Book Browse). Vix’s bond with her ‘summer family’ reshapes her life forever (Book Browse). On the island Victoria meets a boy named Bru. They date through her junior and senior years of high school. When Vix goes off to college she remains loyal to B...
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...were very important in the times of the Medieval Ages, these elements are still portrayed through movies and works of literature of today.
Works Cited
Blume, Judy. Summer Sisters. New York, NY: Random House Inc., 1998. Print.
“British History: Chivalry”. Answers. Web. 25 May 2010.
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Carvalho, Claudio. “Plot Summary for My Sister’s Keeper”. IMDB. Web. 25 May 2010.
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My Sister’s Keeper. Dir. Cassavetes, Nick. New Line Cinema, 2009. DVD.
My Sister’s Keeper. Web. 23 May 2010. .
Random House Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary. Unabridged. New York: Random
House, 2001.
“Summer Sisters”. Book Browse. Web. 21 May 2010.
summer-sisters>.
... has changed drastically. During the Middle Ages, chivalry was a code of brave and courteous conduct for knights. During the Middle Ages, the people who lived during this time use chivalry as a code of conduct .There are some forms of Chivalry today but to a smaller degree than in the Middle Ages. Some examples of chivalry today are helping the elderly, family, and friends with some activities. It’s not possible to be as chivalrous as the knights in the Middle Ages were because our lifestyles have changed. Since the beginning of the Middle Ages, chivalry has been an important part of life. Society had high expectations for knights. Knights strictly followed by these rules and were punished both physically and socially if they broke them. They had many responsibilities such as protect the church, serve their lord, protect the weak and practice courtly love(Chivalry).
One of the most enduring myths in the Western world is that of Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table. Regardless of the origins of the tales, the fact is that by the time they had been filtered through a French sensibility and re-exported to England, they were representations of not one but several ideals. Courtly love and chivalry and the various components thereof, such as martial prowess, chastity, bravery, courtesy, and so on, were presented as the chief virtues to aspire to, and the knights as role models. Arthur's eventual fall is precisely because of having failed at some level to fulfill these ideals in his life.
The Web. The Web. 23 Nov. 2011. The "Middle Ages - Information, Facts, and Links." ENotes - Literature Study Guides, Lesson Plans.
Examples of loyalty can be found in many pieces of classic literature such as _Don Quixote_, _The Odyssey_, and _Sir Gawain and the Green Knight_. Many characters in the stories profess their loyalty to other characters. Some of them fail in their loyalty tests while others prevail. I found loyalty to be an underlying theme in all three pieces of literature covered in this paper. The examples provided should prove the theme of loyalty.
Loyalty is what the the knights demonstrated to their king by being willing to go to battle for him and die protecting his kingdom. The knights are ready to drop everything and go to fight someone they’ve never met, the second King Arthur tells them to. This loyalty is so extreme and powerful, that Lancelot refuses to fight Arthur even after King Arthur Invaded his lands, he chose to wait until he could claim self defense in order to keep his honor as a knight intact. Launcelot is a perfect example of extreme loyalty, because he does not allow his love life to get in the way of the loyalty he has towards his King. This balance that Launcelot has between his love life and loyalty to the King is why Launcelot has the greatest reputation
Popular culture depicts Medieval chivalry as a glamorous and high time for women, with knights bending their knees in worship to them in Pre-Raphaelite paintings, and the fairness and virtue of women being celebrated in literature. Chivalry is often understood as the elevation of the lady fair, with men taking upon themselves the task of protecting and defending women. In fact, though, this was not an elevation of women but a limitation of their freedom and an undermining even of their intelligence and strength of will. Medieval chivalry, in essence, subordinated women to men while claiming to elevate women. In Lanval and Laustic, women are shown to have a subordinate status to men in three ways: being painted as temptresses, being subject to protection from men, and being subservient to orders from men.
By the end of eleventh century, Western Europe had experienced a powerful cultural revival. The flourish of New towns provided a place for exchange of commerce and flow of knowledge and ideas. Universities, which replaced monasteries as centers of learning, poured urbanized knowledge into society. New technological advances and economics transformations provided the means for building magnificent architectures. These developments were representative of the mental and behavioral transformations that the medieval world underwent and the new relationships that were brought about between men, women and society in the twelfth century. As in technology, science, and scholasticism, Literature was also reborn with a new theme.3
Love and loyalty are commonly associated with humanity and freedom, which is why they are often featured within the Dystopian genre in which dictatorships try to change what it means to be human. Love and loyalty are common themes running throughout George Orwell’s 1984, written in 1949 and Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games, written in 2008.
For my second example, I looked to Sir Gawain. The story of the Green Knight is seeped with instances of chivalry, and honorable men. “Always keep one’s word of honor,” was an obvious code for this particular story. Not only did Sir Gawain show respect for the codes of chivalry by serving his king, exhibiting courage, and fighting with honor; he kept his words of honor that had been spoken with the Green Knight. Although he was distracted in his course, he kept the appointed new year challenge with the knight. Not a perfect instance of chivalry, yet his example leads nicely into my next character assessment.
In the Medieval Period, knights dedicated their lives to following the code of chivalry. In Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur, a number of characters performed chivalrous acts to achieve the status of an ideal knight. Their characteristics of respect for women and courtesy for all, helpfulness to the weak, honor, and skill in battle made the characters King Arthur, King Pellinore, and Sir Gryfflette examples of a what knights strove to be like in Medieval society. Because of the examples ofchivalry, Le Morte d’Arthur showed what a knight desired to be, so he could improve theworld in which he lived.
Chivalry was a big part of this fourteenth century and it was embodied throughout the men of king Arthurs round table. In General, Chivalry was a set of religious values and moral goals that medieval knights
In J.R.R. Tolkien 's novel The Hobbit, male friendship is a major theme that exists throughout the text. Male individuals form special bonds with one another through loyalty and support. Even in the warlike setting through the whole of the novel, characters who otherwise couldn 't be friends find a common ground and are able to form a friendship and become dependable. In the Fandom, the importance of these male characters retaining their friendships is relevant everywhere in art, fan fiction, and blogs. However since there are a lack of female characters in the text to create a romantic connection with, fans often sexualize the relationships from the novel. Regardless of how the fandom changes the roles of the relationships, male companionship
Closely associated to the romance tradition are two idealized standards of behavior, especially for knights: courage and chivalry. The protagonist within many medieval romances proved their worth by going on quests, as many a knights went in those times, thus returning with great tales of their travels and deeds. Many modern people think of chivalry as referring to a man's gallant treatment of women, and although that sense is derived from the medieval chivalric ideal, chivalry could be seen as more than that. Knights were expected to be brave, loyal, and honorable-sent to protect the weak, be noble to...
“The Girls in Their Summer Dresses.” Masterplots II: Short Story Series, Revised Edition (2004): Literary Reference Center. EBSCO. Web. 3 Feb. 2010.
Chivalry dealt with loyalty honor, and service to women on and off the battle field’ (“The Medieval Period: 1066-1485” 76). The Knight in The Canterbury Tales is the perfect example of someone who follows the code of chivalry. Chaucer describes him with much admiration as “a most distinguishable man, who from the day on which he first began to ride abroad had followed chivalry, truth, honor generousness and courtesy” (Chaucer, "The Prologue." 117). While Chaucer praises the knight for ... ... middle of paper ... ...