Bisclavret Analytical Essay

                                Bisclavret Analytical Essay

        The story of Bisclavret goes through an explanation of a wife discovering her husbands secret life as a werewolf.  Beginning from her questioning where he disappears to for half the week to him explaining the circumstances.  The results of this discovery prove that the standards of women during the twelfth century left them with few options in situations they may want to leave.  In the case of the wife she is punished for wanting to leave a situation she had not agreed to by being accused of selfishness and disloyalty towards her husband and marriage.

        The tale begins with the wife introducing her husband as a handsome and noble man.  She goes on to explain how everything is well in their marriage except for that every week the husband disappears for three days, and she does not know why or where he goes.  Eventually she musters up the courage to confront him about this, all while afraid that he might reveal that he has another lover.   Her fear to ask this question begins to show the gender roles of this time period.  

The wife says “Lord, I am so fraught with anxiety the days you are apart from me, my heart is so heavy and I have such fear of losing you that I shall surely die shortly from this unless I soon get help” (pg.68)

She shows that she is nervous to bring forward the question towards her husband.  Although it results in him revealing that he is a werewolf and telling the truth to her she begins to run into more issues with the circumstances.  The lack of confidence in her ability to question her husband shows that women in this time period were restricted in their freedoms within their marriages.  They were expected to follow the roles of their husbands and deal with whatever was thrown at them.

An overlaying place where gender roles is visible throughout the story is the lack of a wifes name.   The husband is initially introduced with a name and many describing qualities that allows the reader to be able to feel a sense of his personality.

“He was a good and handsome knight who conducted himself nobly. He was one of his lord’s closest advisers and was well loved by all his neighbours.” (pg 68)

This helps the person be able to empathize and sympathize with him and feel for him as the story goes on.  Having characteristics that describe him specifically keep all attention on him and does not compare him to anyone else in the story.  When compared to how the wife is described you can see the shift in how men and women were thought of differently.

        “As his wedded wife he had a woman who was worthy and attractive in appearance.” (pg. 68)

        This is the only description given for the wife in the story.  She is not given a name as well as her only characteristics being that she is worthy of her husband.  This shows that women were an object for their husband and the only thing that mattered was that they were worthy to be with their man.   They were thought of as under their husband and all that mattered was how their husband was thought of in the community.