What did you think about the ending to Roman de Silence?
7 thoughts on “Feb 18 – Manne and Roman de Silence”
The ending of Roman de Silence reminds me of Marie de France’s Lanval due to the similarity of the Queen lying due to her embarrassment of being rejected. However, Roman de Silence is different in the way that it is handled: the King executes the Queen and then takes the story’s protagonist and the accused, Silence, as his new Queen. Silence’s gender is eventually revealed and then has to face the consequences of their actions by admitting the allegations. But when they do tell their sex, the people are not horrified but, in fact, accept Silence. The ending is good, and I really appreciate that this Medieval text has so many themes of cross-dressing and gender fluidity and that these are even celebrated in the end.
The ending of Roman de Silence is quite strange. The whole story is built up on lie after lie, and I found everything to be more complex than it needed to be. Overall, I found it strange that the King was withheld from any blame by Merlin, when King Evan technically started all of these issues by declaring that women cannot inherit from their parents. If this decree wasn’t made, there wouldn’t be this strange domino effect of lies, but there also wouldn’t be a story to tell.
Overall, the representation of women within the story is terrible. In previous stories we have seen Guinevere act in a similar malicious way towards a man who refuses to have sex with her, but Eufeme is depicted as being more hateful and cruel. The reader can feel the hate the narrator feels towards her by his use of “whore” and “slut” when referring to her. The narrator also goes off on misogynistic tangents about how women are naturally deceitful and seek out to hurt men. Instead of just pointing this out to be Eufeme’s intentions, he generalizes these actions as things all women do.
Although there is some justice in Eufeme’s death, there is confusion around the nun’s execution. There was very little said on their affair, and it makes the reader wonder if Eufeme was forcing the nun to be with her, just as she planned ways to get Silence to be with her.
Silence’s ending is seemingly supposed to be a happy one, but I find very little joy from it. All Silence knows is what he was raised to do, which was to follow more “masculine” tasks in order to appear to be male. Instead of stating that Silence took upon her expected womanly appearance and duties, the narrator writes that, “they dressed Silence as a woman” (313). Taken away from her typical duties of a Knight, Silence transform back to her expected feminine appearance. Is this what Silence wanted? Just because Silence was accepted instead of being hated, exiled, or killed for lying about their sex, does this make this a happy ending? It’s even stranger that after knowing Silence as a male his whole life, the King randomly decides to take them as a wife.
I agree with Ayla in the ending being extremely disappointing in reference to Silence. Silence is initially this incredibly strong woman, who is disguised as a man. Even though she is disguised, this doesn’t undermine the tasks that she has still completed. I find it incredibly disappointing that in the end she is just made queen. This strips silence of the life she has grown up in. She is no longer allowed to interact with the activities that she thrived in. Putting her on the throne strips her down to the expectations of what a woman should be, and I find that really disappointing.
I also feel unsettled in Eufemes death. I think her lust (whether it was justified or not) towards Silence was a result of the environment that she was living in. She was in a space where her validity as a woman was based upon the men that she could draw towards herself. While I don’t think her actions are justifiable, I think the scenario was almost forced upon her by society.
From first glance the ending is happy, but it wasn’t very fulfilling to me. I agree with Chase– Silence’s ending is very disappointing. The king taking Silence as his queen doesn’t really make sense. Obviously, it’s technically the highest position a woman could have so we should feel happy for her, but there was never any suggestion that Silence had any affection towards the king or vice versa (but that probably wouldn’t have been suggested anyway since Silence was disguised as a boy). So, the relationship seems so forced. The king became attracted to her, besides her beauty, because he believed she held one of the most “valuable” traits a woman could hold, stating “There is no more precious gem, nor greater treasure, than a virtuous woman” (lines 6633-34). I found this annoying, especially after we just witnessed all that Silence had been through. I think her strength, among other qualities, should be revered more than the king’s interest in her virtuousness. On top of that, we don’t really hear Silence’s opinion on becoming the king’s queen, the whole scenario is very passive. After going on Silence’s whole journey, we should probably hear from her in her last moments in the story.
I agree with my other classmates that the ending felt odd. So as to not simply repeat what everyone else has said, I’m going to attempt to take my analysis a step further and say that I believe making Silence queen was an attempt to, ironically, silence them. This entire story has revolved around their complex relationship with gender; the idea of nature vs nurture, and the pros and cons of being interpreted as male or female. Suddenly declaring that Silence is a queen and a wife seems to throw all of that out the window, almost as an attempt to tie things up with a neat little bow. I, like my other classmates, didn’t see any indication that Silence wanted this life as a woman married to the king. I think Silence is a much more complex person than this role can satisfy, and this ending certainly takes a story that otherwise debunks the myth of the gender binary, and suddenly embraces it.
I was expecting a less accepting outcome for Silence at the end of the story. I think to make her queen and have everyone, not question and accept the fact that she had been living a lie, almost seems unrealistic. I was also expecting her to, yes, have her assigned sex to be revealed, but possibly continue doing the things that she was good at and enjoyed. Instead, she was placed into stereotypical gender roles and was forced to take on the tasks of a woman after being outed. The tasks and activities she had accomplished shouldn’t be undermined by her being a woman. She should have the choice to do what she wants to do, but as Eris had stated, maybe declaring Silence as queen was a way to “silence” everyone, so she didn’t have to face the ridicule. After reading other’s responses, I have realized that we all feel pretty similarly about the outcome of the story.
I agree with a lot of what everyone already said. It was an odd ending and the endless lies made me rethink different parts of the ending and the story overall. With regards to the characters like Merlin and the King, you can see that the lies reside within them the most and it impacts the story and all the lies as well.
The ending of Roman de Silence reminds me of Marie de France’s Lanval due to the similarity of the Queen lying due to her embarrassment of being rejected. However, Roman de Silence is different in the way that it is handled: the King executes the Queen and then takes the story’s protagonist and the accused, Silence, as his new Queen. Silence’s gender is eventually revealed and then has to face the consequences of their actions by admitting the allegations. But when they do tell their sex, the people are not horrified but, in fact, accept Silence. The ending is good, and I really appreciate that this Medieval text has so many themes of cross-dressing and gender fluidity and that these are even celebrated in the end.
The ending of Roman de Silence is quite strange. The whole story is built up on lie after lie, and I found everything to be more complex than it needed to be. Overall, I found it strange that the King was withheld from any blame by Merlin, when King Evan technically started all of these issues by declaring that women cannot inherit from their parents. If this decree wasn’t made, there wouldn’t be this strange domino effect of lies, but there also wouldn’t be a story to tell.
Overall, the representation of women within the story is terrible. In previous stories we have seen Guinevere act in a similar malicious way towards a man who refuses to have sex with her, but Eufeme is depicted as being more hateful and cruel. The reader can feel the hate the narrator feels towards her by his use of “whore” and “slut” when referring to her. The narrator also goes off on misogynistic tangents about how women are naturally deceitful and seek out to hurt men. Instead of just pointing this out to be Eufeme’s intentions, he generalizes these actions as things all women do.
Although there is some justice in Eufeme’s death, there is confusion around the nun’s execution. There was very little said on their affair, and it makes the reader wonder if Eufeme was forcing the nun to be with her, just as she planned ways to get Silence to be with her.
Silence’s ending is seemingly supposed to be a happy one, but I find very little joy from it. All Silence knows is what he was raised to do, which was to follow more “masculine” tasks in order to appear to be male. Instead of stating that Silence took upon her expected womanly appearance and duties, the narrator writes that, “they dressed Silence as a woman” (313). Taken away from her typical duties of a Knight, Silence transform back to her expected feminine appearance. Is this what Silence wanted? Just because Silence was accepted instead of being hated, exiled, or killed for lying about their sex, does this make this a happy ending? It’s even stranger that after knowing Silence as a male his whole life, the King randomly decides to take them as a wife.
I agree with Ayla in the ending being extremely disappointing in reference to Silence. Silence is initially this incredibly strong woman, who is disguised as a man. Even though she is disguised, this doesn’t undermine the tasks that she has still completed. I find it incredibly disappointing that in the end she is just made queen. This strips silence of the life she has grown up in. She is no longer allowed to interact with the activities that she thrived in. Putting her on the throne strips her down to the expectations of what a woman should be, and I find that really disappointing.
I also feel unsettled in Eufemes death. I think her lust (whether it was justified or not) towards Silence was a result of the environment that she was living in. She was in a space where her validity as a woman was based upon the men that she could draw towards herself. While I don’t think her actions are justifiable, I think the scenario was almost forced upon her by society.
From first glance the ending is happy, but it wasn’t very fulfilling to me. I agree with Chase– Silence’s ending is very disappointing. The king taking Silence as his queen doesn’t really make sense. Obviously, it’s technically the highest position a woman could have so we should feel happy for her, but there was never any suggestion that Silence had any affection towards the king or vice versa (but that probably wouldn’t have been suggested anyway since Silence was disguised as a boy). So, the relationship seems so forced. The king became attracted to her, besides her beauty, because he believed she held one of the most “valuable” traits a woman could hold, stating “There is no more precious gem, nor greater treasure, than a virtuous woman” (lines 6633-34). I found this annoying, especially after we just witnessed all that Silence had been through. I think her strength, among other qualities, should be revered more than the king’s interest in her virtuousness. On top of that, we don’t really hear Silence’s opinion on becoming the king’s queen, the whole scenario is very passive. After going on Silence’s whole journey, we should probably hear from her in her last moments in the story.
I agree with my other classmates that the ending felt odd. So as to not simply repeat what everyone else has said, I’m going to attempt to take my analysis a step further and say that I believe making Silence queen was an attempt to, ironically, silence them. This entire story has revolved around their complex relationship with gender; the idea of nature vs nurture, and the pros and cons of being interpreted as male or female. Suddenly declaring that Silence is a queen and a wife seems to throw all of that out the window, almost as an attempt to tie things up with a neat little bow. I, like my other classmates, didn’t see any indication that Silence wanted this life as a woman married to the king. I think Silence is a much more complex person than this role can satisfy, and this ending certainly takes a story that otherwise debunks the myth of the gender binary, and suddenly embraces it.
I was expecting a less accepting outcome for Silence at the end of the story. I think to make her queen and have everyone, not question and accept the fact that she had been living a lie, almost seems unrealistic. I was also expecting her to, yes, have her assigned sex to be revealed, but possibly continue doing the things that she was good at and enjoyed. Instead, she was placed into stereotypical gender roles and was forced to take on the tasks of a woman after being outed. The tasks and activities she had accomplished shouldn’t be undermined by her being a woman. She should have the choice to do what she wants to do, but as Eris had stated, maybe declaring Silence as queen was a way to “silence” everyone, so she didn’t have to face the ridicule. After reading other’s responses, I have realized that we all feel pretty similarly about the outcome of the story.
I agree with a lot of what everyone already said. It was an odd ending and the endless lies made me rethink different parts of the ending and the story overall. With regards to the characters like Merlin and the King, you can see that the lies reside within them the most and it impacts the story and all the lies as well.