63 pages • 2 hours read
Thomas Malory, Peter AckroydThe Death of King Arthur: The Immortal Legend
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1485A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
The Round Table
Malory describes characters who are inducted into the company of the Round Table as gaining “a seat” or joining the “fellowship” (51, 72, 131, 162). At face value, this means access to the king and a place to gather with other knights, but the significance is deeper. Because of the shape of the Round Table—its lack of an obvious head—any knight inducted into the group enjoys symbolic equality with the knights already seated there; though some (like Lancelot) rise to dominance above the rest, before Arthur they all receive the same dignity, concern, and respect. In that sense, the Round Table symbolizes courteous and brotherly goodwill in itself. No matter what a person’s background (there are knights in the fellowship who hail from Ireland, Scotland, and France), so long as he proves himself courageous and loyal, any knight is welcome to join.
Coupled with the symbol of the Round Table is the symbol of empty seats there. At the beginning of the quest for the Holy Grail, Arthur laments that it will be the last time all of his knights are in fellowship together. After this point, every scene in the story featuring the Round Table either directly or indirectly comments on its emptiness or open seats. This signifies the absence of those knights not just from Camelot but from the world; theirs is a dying breed and the era of chivalry is passing.
The Forest
In their individual quests for honor and renown, each knight must search out adventures to test their strength, prove their character, and serve their king. Most of these adventures take place in one of several forest locations throughout the book. Sometimes these forest locations have proper names, such as the Perilous Forest (where Tristram wanders naked after his exile), but most of the time they remain nameless, which is the point. The forest in Le Morte d’Arthur is a wild, uncharted realm of confusion and often pathless amorality. It is a locus for disorder and evil but also an unexpected meeting ground for righteous priests. In the forest, knights and women alike wrestle with the good and the bad. Isolde, when she contemplates suicide, considers ending her life in the forest. The forest is also a place of enchantment, monsters, and supernatural visions. Arthur encounters Pellinor’s beast in the forest and there first takes possession of the sword Excalibur (via a mysterious hand rising out of a lake). Servants of Morgan le Fay haunt the forest, occasionally trying to trick knights with spells or tests.
The forest represents a departure from societal norms, domestic comforts, and traditional ethics—the physical but also metaphorical limits of Arthur’s rule. It is a place of fear, depression, and uncertainty. Lancelot, after parting from his son Galahad at the outset of the quest for the Holy Grail, wanders in “a wild wood where there was no true path” (191). To test their courage, strength, and character to their limits, the knights need to seek adventure in the forest because of what the forest represents. It is not a place for the faint of heart. What is more, the forest (and all the chaos it contains) is never too far away from Camelot, London, Carlisle, or any of Arthur’s other dwelling places, alerting the knights that the wildness of the world is always ready to encroach on civilization.
The Holy Grail
Much is made of the Holy Grail in the middle of the book, which recounts the knights’ mission to find it. Taken from the New Testament, the story of the Holy Grail involves a man named Joseph of Arimathea, who, at Christ’s crucifixion, caught some of Jesus’s blood in a cup to preserve the holy liquid—sacred because, in Christian teaching, Christ lived a pure and righteous life, untainted by sin, and died sacrificially for all people. At Arthur’s court, this story of sacrificial love and righteousness is tantamount to ideal chivalry; therefore, Christ is the ultimate “king” to whom every knight owes his allegiance, much as they owe their fealty to Arthur himself. It is another variation on the theme of lord-vassal relationships that dominates the narrative.
Paired with accounts of the Holy Grail are glorious descriptions of sublime and heavenly visions. This fits with the knights’ own personal errands to receive renown for themselves in service to their king: To find the blood of Jesus brings with it honor, which the knights can soak up for themselves. However, this particular quest also calls for the knights to worship God rather than themselves. There is an element to the quest for the Holy Grail that subverts the code of chivalry and renders Arthur’s knights humbler. Though most fail to grasp this, the quest’s goal is to garner praise not for themselves or their chosen ladies (since no women are allowed on this quest) but for God, the ultimate ruler. The Holy Grail, with all it represents spiritually, is the greatest trophy the knights of the Round Table could ever acquire. The fact that (except for Galahad) they fail to attain it symbolizes the limits of temporal, human moral codes even at the peak of chivalry.
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