For Thursday: White, The Sword in the Stone, Chs. 15-23 (or
as close to the end as you can get)
Answer
2 of the 4 questions that follow:
1. What
do you make of the scene in Chapter 15 when the Questling Beast begins to waste
away when Sir Pellinore stops hunting it?
Initially, it seems like his quest is rather pointless and comical, and
yet after this scene he vows to return to the Hunt forever (even though,
strangely, he has already caught the Beast).
Is this scene another instance of the foolish and Quixotic nature of
knighthood? Or does this
represent/reveal something else entirely?
2. In
Wart’s adventure with the Geese, he tells Lyo-lyok, “I like fighting…It is
knightly.” Her response is, simply, “Because
you’re a baby” (170). Why is the Geese adventure
somewhat different from his experiences with the Fish, the Ants, and the
Hawks? Why might the perspective be
different with Geese, and what ideas and concepts don’t make sense to them from
the “real” world?
3. In
class today (Tuesday), I pointed out the long passage on page 183 where Merlyn
explains the importance of learning to Wart: “The best thing for being sad…is
to learn something.” Why is this a just
response to Wart’s initial question about growing up, “Why do people not think,
when they are grown up, as I do when I am young?” (181). What might Merlyn be trying to teach Wart
about the essential difference between innocence and experience, childhood and
adulthood? Why is education the essential
bridge between the two?
4. The Sword and the Stone was written right
on the eve of World War II, when England’s involvement was all but
inevitable. The composition of the
entire series occupied him throughout the war, and the books became
progressively darker. How cynical or
hopeful do you feel this book is about human nature in a time of war? What verdict does Merlyn—or others—deliver
upon the human race? Consider the
passage, “Do you know that Homo sapiens is almost the only animal which wages
war…There are the five ants, one termite that I know of, and Man”
(193-194).
Cayla Odom
ReplyDelete1. I think that this scene with the Questing beast has a lot to do with ambition and how a person develops. It is like the loss of innocence or of a dream. Once you lose your idealized view of the world it wastes away and all you can see is reality. Once you give something up, you can choose to try to obtain it again, but it doesn't hold the same magical quality that it initially did. I think this may be saying that in hunting the questing beast, Pellinore loses his innocence and turns his mind over to reality in some ways. In this sense, it is about reaching an ideal and realizing it is not what you thought it would be.
4. I think that part of the association between Merlyn and animals reflects his views on mankind. I think that there is a connection between him and the natural world. This connection and his attitudes towards education and man indicate that he doesn't see human behavior, or war, as something natural. It makes human nature seem so insignificant or outrageous, because of the fact that the natural order of most species has no need for violence of that magnitude.
Ashley Bean
ReplyDelete1. I think it is a little of both. I think it is satirizing knights and knighthood in general, because in reality they have no real point. They win honor by doing what? Jabbing at each other with over sized sticks? They dress up in fancy armor and get on fancy horses to do a whole lot of nothing, usually. They are useful sometimes, but really they are just for show. Pellinore and the Beast were the other's real point in life, and when Pellinore stopped chasing it, it gave up. There was no need to run anymore. If you lose sight of your dream, it will probably give up as well. Pellinore seems to realize this, and vows to hunt it forever, despite that he already caught it in a way. A few chapters later after the beast has recovered, Pellinore closes his eyes and gives it a head start, then he goes off in clearly the wrong direction. He knows this is his purpose, and maybe it's better than jabbing at other knights with big sticks and sleeping in a feather bed.
2. The geese are the only ones with true perspective. They are truly free to fly as they want, where they want. They can see the full horizon, rather than the circle that the fish see, and they see the surface of the entire world unfold beneath them. While the hawks could be like this as well, they are too obsessed with ranks and orders, as well as serving humans. The geese have more than likely seen true bloodshed, unlike little Wart. Fighting to him is dressing up in fancy armor and riding around on a pretty horse, maybe jabbing at the other knight. There is no real harm. He almost saw it with the ants, but he left in time. The geese see the bigger picture, and find it silly to bicker on little things such as land. She even says that it would be silly to make invisible lines in the air when everyone flies there.
1. This particular scene was one of my favorite from this reading. I was reading in bed and almost began laughing aloud because the idea of saving what they were referring to so endearingly as “The Beast” just doesn’t seem to add up. After finishing the chapter though and reflecting on it, this scene seems to represent the structure that abounds in the “real world” especially in relation to the dichotomy of the “real world” of knighthood and the class system and the “entertaining world” of education. Logically, it doesn’t make sense to keep alive the thing your entire lineage has been destined to kill, but that’s just how it goes: without a Questling Beast there is no point in the Pellinore line.
ReplyDelete2. For the first time, Wart exposes the fact that he is not naturally a part of the “people” group he is submerging himself in. And in being completely honest with Lyo-lyok in the fact that he is not what he appears to be and in fact does not have a working knowledge of the culture of these “people” she is completely honest with him and tells him that he is immature in his education of culture and of the nature of beings in general. After Wart describes to her how ants kill other ants in an act of war, Lyo-lyok reminds him that they are a different species altogether than the ants and that engrained in their nature is the ability to flee and not to fight to the death.