Essay Week 12: Women's Roles in Britomart

This week I read the Britomart unit. I’m pretty sure this is the first unit I’ve read where a female has been the main character in the story with the exception of Alice in Wonderland. That was a children’s story however, so it is much more common to have a female lead. This unit was unique though because it is about knights, which are traditionally male characters.

Britomart was a female but she was dressed up as a knight the entire time and trying to conceal her true identity when amongst the men. I think this made the story even more unique, but the author didn’t have a woman simply defeating men throughout the story. Britomart won every battle or competition she found herself in, but this was due to the fact that she has a magical spear and shield that she stole at the beginning of the unit. This is unknown to all of the characters in the unit, but the men definitely fear Britomart once they start fighting her.

I think having magical weapons being the way that the woman is successful in this unit still falls into the traditional male roles and does not present anything groundbreaking or unique. Other than Britomart, all of the other characters fell into “traditional” roles. Women were given as prizes to the knights and the knights were seen as the protectors of their ladies.

Another notable addition is that there was a woman who followed Britomart throughout her journey. She was an old nurse that took care of Britomart in the castle she lived in and the disguise was actually her idea.

Lastly, the entire theme of the story is Britomart searching for true love, which is actually just a face she saw in a magical mirror. Overall, this was a very fun unit to read and it was unique that the main character was a female who was disguised as a male, but the story still fits perfectly into “traditional” roles. 

Bibliography:
Stories from the Fairie Queene by Mary Macleod (1916).

Image Info: Illustration by Paul Mercuri (1860-1861). Web Source: Wikipedia.