Finishing the tale, I realized the story was close to tragic; however I had been almost assured it was comedy until the end of Part 2. The dual, seemingly a symbol of foreshadwoing truce between the brothers, actually turned out to be a tragic event. It also made me think that the style of the tale was typically Greek/Roman myth due to the involvement of various of Greek/Roman Gods who change a person's given fate based on their perspective.
To briefly explain the climax and the end, Arcite and Palamon have a "mock" battle--that is, they each bring a small amount of army and fight to the death ["...To gentle blood to fight in the manner Of mortal battle now in this undertaking." (2539)] . By a chance, Arcite throws Palamon on the ground and gets ready to kill him. However, Saturn, who was on Palamon's side, forces an earthquake that eventually kills Arcite. Palamon becomes the winner, and although Emelye was extremely sad since she prefered Arcite over Palamon, both Palamon and Emelye end up together happily.
It is undeniable that The Knight's Tale is a tragic story, hence apart from the plot itself, I came to discover some other aspect of the tale: Human beings are very weak and fragile. Cousins who have known each other since they were youngsters fought over a total stranger, a person's given fate easily altered by God, and the strong having a full control of the weaks are the examples of my thought.
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| Trojan War |
In terms of love, I was able to relate this story to Helen of Troy, a very famous story of two countries, based on two men, fighting over a woman. Because of Helen, a man and his enormous number of citizens, followers, friends, and soldiers died, then his empire was completely anahilated. At the same time, many of the heroes who were involved in the war encountered death due to God's support, or sometimes imprecations. From all these, I realized that humans are weak beings.
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