Gender Roles in William the Conqueror

The novel we are currently reading in Professor Bump's World Literature class, The Woman Warrior, has to do in the main with gender roles in Asian/Asian-American Society. In this culture, according to the Author Maxine Hong Kingston, it is "better to raise geese than girls." (Kingston 43) This, in short, implies that woman are nothing but a nuisance and expense to the daughters' families. Patrick Knaeve's William the Conqueror takes a similar approach to the role of woman in society. In the play, my character, Harold Godwinson, is forced to become the King of England in response to the former king, Edward, making him his heir. This was in direct conflict to efforts Harold had made, at the king's previous request,  to make William Duke of Normandy take up this mantle. Harold has a Common-Bond wife, Edith, whom he has been wed to for 20 years. However, when he becomes king, he is told by the Bishop Stigand that he must marry a noblewoman, especially in order to placate certain Earls in the North of England whom were not pleased at Harold's ascendance. 

 

(Hey that's me)

Harold-- now struggling under the burden of his desires versus those of his advisers, wife, and sister (the former queen to Edward)-- explodes in anger at Edith and the Queen. "Because you never have seen war, but only heard it sung of in the halls you think it simple, easily confronted! You Woman were not made to face such things. You both would tremble in the dragon's jaws and beg for death rather than stand and fight." (Knaeve 32) In response, his sister the Queen states, "Mark, Edith, how he treats us womankind. . . we are not spears at their sides in battle heat. . . and thus relegated to lesser loves. Though we see so much more than merely war." (Knaeve 32) 

It is obvious to the reader or audience member that, while the play itself recognizes the repugnance of such views, the characters themselves have very classical opinions of gender roles. Much like the opinions of Kingston's parents in The Woman Warrior, woman are only as valuable as they are convenient and subservient.  They are used in certain cases for political gain, and otherwise should simply obey, even if the man loves the woman involved, as Harold does. "It is not for myself I spurn thy love, which waxes still withing my weary heart. But I must be a king, and kings are thrall to all that their folk need, or else their folk are thrall to them and they deserve no crown." (Knaeve 33) Although Harold makes these decisions because he believes he is doing what is best for the kingdom, he in the end pays for them dearly. By the end of the play, Harold is dead and his former wife is forced to seek out his various body parts strewn across the battlefield. As we all agreed throughout the play, "Harold's kind of an idiot." His first mistake of many was the decision to spurn his wife in order to placate lords in the north, whom in the end are of no use to him. 

Tapestry of Harold with an arrow in his eye.