Why Abortions Should Not Be Banned - Imaginative Vs Realism

Lekeshia Griffith

Mr. Canter

English 1010

8 September 2015

Imaginative vs Realism

In “La Belle Dame Sans Merci” there’s a wounded knight whose caretaker is a wild eyed graceful woman, but is this a figment of his imagination or reality? Beautiful woman are not usually wandering in the meads. Keats knight states “and on thy cheeks a fading rose fast withered too,” (Keats 11-12) which exaggerates the mental and physical state of the narrator before he comes in presences of the lady. Another interesting quote from the text is “full beautiful- a feary’s child” (Keats 14) questioning the lady’s reality.

Wild eyes can be perceived in many ways, the knight examines them can be mysterious and daring; pulling the knight into her; “And her eyes were wild” (Keats 16) he claims. Another way to interpret her wild eyes that john repeats many times to insinuate the narrator’s mental state could be hypnotizing or dangerous. The description of the nice and caring lady is not so convincing given some specific circumstances. “I met the lady in the meads” (Keats 13) stating that she appears out in the fatal darkness of the night, Also after bringing him back to her cave it says “and there she gaz’d and sighed deep” (Keats 30); in translation she cries and sighs loudly. But why? Possibly because she is at war with herself, she doesn’t love him, or she wishes it was reality. The description and purpose of the woman in this poem is not clear nor convincing.

John Keats describes the woman as a graceful, wild eyed attractive person whom the knight falls in love with as vice versa. The lady fairy is very kind and generous as described in the text, “found me roots of relish sweet and honey wild and manna-dew” (Keats 25, 26) this great description states she is gathering for the knight. A few of her gathering includes sweet tasty foods. The sudden affection for the knight leads her to confess love for him, for example in line 25 it explains “and sure in language strange she said-‘I love thee true’” and the narrator’s acknowledgement of her strange language is consciousness of fairy-like actions. Eventfully it states “she took me to her elfin grot” (Keats 29) anticipating as the narrator tells us “sweet moan” (Keats 20). The knight states “I made garland for her head, and bracelets too, and fragrant zone;” (Keats 17, 18), given that the knight is severely wounded possibly on his death bed; the only thing that could make him do all these generous things could possibly be the fairylike woman who sang a fairy song.