Death In Morte Darthur

One of the hardest elements to execute in storytelling is writing a character's death. It may be common for an author to kill the villain in a story or possibly even a minor character, but ending the life of a major character can serve to either enhance a story or possibly even ruin it. The line between a well-written character death and a poorly written character death is thin, but while it is easy to kill your characters, it is not always easy to write the consequences that follow a character's death. In Thomas Malory’s tragedy Morte Darthur, or Death of Arthur, Malory is able to both effectively illustrate the deaths of his characters and show the consequences of a character's death through the use of plot and this serves to show the reader how valuable a …show more content…
After the death of Arthur, Guinevere and Lancelot are separated because of their sins. As a result of this separation, Lancelot is unable to make it to Guinevere again before she dies and as a result “Sir Lancelot never after ate but little meat, nor drank, till he was dead, for then he sickened more and more and dried and dwined away” (Malory 454). The significance of Guinevere’s death is because of the fact that it causes Lancelot to starve himself because it shows that, despite the sins Lancelot and Guinevere had committed, they truly did love each other as, while they were fated to never meet again after Arthur’s death, Lancelot still mourned her death so greatly that he let himself waste away because of his sorrow. In addition, Guinevere’s death allowed Lancelot to be redeemed in the eyes of God and go to Heaven, so while she did cause his tragic death, her death also allowed him to finally gain redemption for his sins. In short, Guinevere’s death had lasting consequences because of how it affected her love, Lancelot, and caused a tragic ending in both her own story and that of