The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley
"The Mists of Avalon" by Marion Zimmer Bradley is a reimagining of the Arthurian legends, shifting the narrative focus from the male heroes to the women who play crucial yet often overlooked roles. This novel presents a rich tapestry of personal experiences and struggles faced by female characters, including Morgaine (Morgan le Fay) and Viviane, as they navigate a world undergoing significant cultural and religious transformations. The story delves into the transition from paganism to Christianity, portraying the latter as a complex and sometimes burdensome value system. In this retelling, even male figures like Arthur are depicted with greater emotional depth, reflecting the societal pressures they face.
Bradley's narrative invites readers to reconsider traditional tales by highlighting the importance of individual perspectives and the impact of storytelling on reality. Through ritualistic and symbolic acts, such as Arthur's kingmaking ceremony that involves a profound connection with the Goddess, the novel explores themes of identity, secrecy, and the intersection of personal and political power. Bradley's work resonates particularly with feminist discourse, as it not only emphasizes female empowerment but also provides a thoughtful critique of patriarchal structures. Overall, "The Mists of Avalon" is a significant contribution to the fantasy genre, appealing to those interested in alternative narratives that honor women's voices and experiences in history.
The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley
First published: 1982
Type of work: Novel
Type of plot: Fantasy
Time of work: Perhaps the sixth century c.e.
Locale: Britain and the legendary Holy Isle of Avalon
Principal Characters:
Morgaine , the priestess of the ancient Mother Goddess and the half sister of King Arthur through their mother, IgraineViviane , the Lady of the Lake, the Lady of the Holy Isle of Avalon, and the high priestess of the Old ReligionIgraine , Viviane’s half sister, who is forced into a marriage with Gorlois but who finds love with Uther PendragonUther Pendragon , a great warrior and champion of the native tribes who becomes high king of BritainArthur , the son of Uther and Igraine, who unites Britain under his leadershipGwenhwyfer , Arthur’s wife, a devout Christian who is mocked by her erotic obsession with Arthur’s best friend, the handsome Lancelet
Form and Content
This imaginative retelling of the life and times of Britain’s legendary King Arthur consistently displaces the usual masculine focus on the trials and triumphs of the hero. The battlefield where men play their desperate games of life and death recedes to background information. The focus is on the personal experiences of the women who are ordinarily only peripheral to hero stories. Suddenly, the myth, even though tinged with mystery and magic, seems more real, more grounded in some kind of gritty truth about human nature and the trials of the soul—at least women readers may think so.
Curiously, even male characters, though relatively simple in motivation and character compared to women, may seem more human and life-sized than heroes usually are, more entrapped by the demands of their social roles and their need for love and ego validation. Even the victorious Arthur, basking in the camaraderie of the Round Table, seems curiously understandable as a husband who is more comfortable with other men than with trying to untangle or even comprehend his own marital difficulties or his moral obligations.
Moreover, the larger truths of history, too often neglected in traditional tales of war, become visible as the deeper, always ambiguous, but ultimately more important changes in religious and philosophical outlook. This is a story about the gradual replacement of paganism by Christianity, revealing the new religion as a mixed blessing, a value system still in need of refinement.
When the Holy Grail (which was really the ancient chalice of the Goddess) appeared in that charmed company at Camelot, moved around the room, and then disappeared, an illusion orchestrated by Morgaine as high priestess, almost every knight in the company vowed to go on a quest to recover the Holy Grail. Arthur was abruptly left alone in an almost empty castle.
Confirmed Christians said that they saw an angel from God carrying the cup that Christ used in the Last Supper, but trained Druids such as Merlin of Britain knew that it was the Holy Chalice born by the Goddess herself, incarnate in her priestess. This treatment of one of the central episodes of the Grail legend supports one of the basic themes of this novel, that people create their own reality. This is not really an appeal to supernaturalism, but an observation about how the stories people tell themselves can change the world.
The ambiguities inherent in changing cultural norms appear early in the novel, when the young Arthur submits to ritual testing at his kingmaking. For this, he is disguised as a young stag with stag horns attached to his head. He must run with the deer in the forest and challenge the King Stag (symbolic of an ancient Celtic god and lord of the beasts). If he survives this fight to the death, he becomes symbolically the King Stag himself and enters the cave of the Mother, where he mates with a young priestess who represents the Great Goddess. Both are in a state of orgiastic and religious trance, and no blame or sense of sin is attached to this ritual act.
Viviane has organized a special element in this particular kingmaking, however, casting the young virginal Morgaine to represent the Goddess in her brother’s kingmaking. Neither participant knows who the other is until the morning. They both realize the need for secrecy, since the Christians would be profoundly shocked if they knew Arthur had lain with his own sister.
Morgaine does not tell her brother until many years later that she had conceived a son at his kingmaking. She knows that although Christian kings, like pagan ones, had their bastards, one born of incest could never win favor as an heir to the throne. After a very difficult birth, she leaves the baby Gwydion—later called Sir Mordred—with her Aunt Morgause. He plays a role in the final chapters of King Arthur’s life, reinforcing the impression of Morgaine as unwittingly playing the role of the death aspect of the Goddess—the Fate.
Context
Without actually being a polemical feminist, Bradley has certainly gained the attention of feminists because of her skill at presenting female points of view. Because she is also a careful researcher in history, anthropology, magic, and religion, she is able to fulfill a contemporary need for female heroes. She is one of the best popular writers to explore imaginatively the possibilities of alternative roles for women— especially in The Shattered Chain (1976) and its sequel Thendara House (1983), part of her Darkover series. These novels about Darkover women have been praised as being among the best and most realistic treatments in science fiction of the themes of liberation and free choice.
Bradley has sometimes been compared to Ursula K. Le Guin, who once explained that she wrote The Left Hand of Darkness (about an ambisexual human race) as a kind of “thought experiment” with which to approach the interesting question What is basic human nature, if gender differences could be ruled out?
Science fiction and fantasy provide ways for persons bound by contemporary cultural reality to visualize the unthinkable. An alien world may be far removed in planetary space or in time alone. Perhaps the latter, by virtue of its actual or implied reality, may provide an even more striking commentary on contemporary mores. The increased knowledge and speculation among scholars (especially feminist writers) about ancient religions and how they may have affected the status of women lends a special glow of plausibility to imaginative projections into the legendary or pre-Christian past.
Bradley’s long experience as a writer of fiction gives her a considerable advantage over a more polemical feminist writer such as Barbara Walker, who has only recently tried to dramatize in novel form her convictions about a goddess religion. Although Walker’s scholarly works, such as the massive Women’s Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets (1983), are truly impressive, her novel Amazon (1992), about a warrior woman from ancient times, magically transported by the Goddess to modern America, seems to be a polemic about the failings of modern civilization rather than a sensitive revelation about what it might feel like to be a woman in a nonpatriarchal culture. Bradley can educate the heart more indirectly but also more convincingly about the cost to women of a rigidly patriarchal religion.
Bibliography
Antioch Review. XLI, Summer, 1983, p. 370.
Arbur, Rosemarie. Marion Zimmer Bradley. Mercer Island, Wash.: Starmont House, 1985. Criticism and interpretation of Bradley’s entire body of work, except for the most recent publications (after 1984). Includes both primary and secondary bibliographies. Arbur praises The Mists of Avalon for combining the powerful elements of fantasy with the factuality of the historical novel.
Bradley, Marion Zimmer. “Experiment Perilous.” In Experiment Perilous: Three Essays on Science Fiction. New York: ALGOL Press, 1976. Deals with changes in science fiction, such as the explicit treatment of sex, fuller characterization, and more careful coverage of emotional and psychological experience.
Bradley, Marion Zimmer. “The Heroic Image of Women: Woman as Wizard and Warrior.” In Sword and Sorceress. New York: Daw Books, 1984. Describes and analyzes this variation of the usually male-oriented “sword and sorcery” fantasy literature.
Bradley, Marion Zimmer. “My Trip Through Science Fiction.” Algol 15, no. 1 (Winter, 1977): 10-20. A professional autobiography. Interesting comments on her early sense of alienation and the impact upon her of Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness.
Christian Science Monitor. March 23, 1983, p. 15.
Graves, Robert. The White Goddess. London: Faber & Faber, 1948. A controversial discussion of the function of Welsh bardic poetry and the importance of a Triple Goddess of the moon, earth, and underworld, variously represented as virgin, mother, and crone. Graves, like Bradley, was profoundly influenced by James Frazer’s ten-volume investigation of magic and religion The Golden Bough (1922).
Library Journal. CVII, December 15, 1982, p. 2351.
Los Angeles Times Book Review. July 3, 1983, p. 8.
The New York Times Book Review. LXXXVIII, January 30, 1983, p. 11.
Publishers Weekly. CCXXII, November 12, 1982, p. 58.
Shwartz, Susan M. “Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Ethic of Freedom.” In The Feminine Eye: Science Fiction and the Women Who Write It, edited by Tom Staicar. New York: Frederick Ungar, 1982. This analysis involves the Darkover novels but applies to themes of freedom in The Mists of Avalon as well. One repeated observation in the Darkover novels is that any change or progress involves painful choices.