Martin Guerre

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    The Return of Martin Guerre by Natalie Zemon Davis is a historical tale about sixteenth century identity fraud and the authors who wrote about the Martin Guerre trial. As a historian, Davis uses several forms of writing as her resources including “letter and diaries, autobiographies, memoirs, family histories…plays, lyric poems, and stories.” Davis realizes that these types of resources come with over-exaggerations, gaps, and contradicting perspectives, subsequently she supplements these with the use of her knowledge of the French government, geography, business practices and the legal system of the sixteenth century. Throughout the book, Natalie Davis interprets the events that led up to Arnaud du Tilh stealing the identity of Martin Guerre and Bertrande de Rols either being an accomplice or fooled by Arnaud du Tilh. The interesting part occurs when Davis examines how identity fraud could be accomplished and drawn out for years. “In a time without photographs, with few portraits, without tape recorders, without fingerprinting, without identity cards, without birth certificates, with parish records still irregular,” identity…

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    The Return of Martin Guerre depicts the crafty scheme of a clever man in a historic case of identity theft. The Return of Martin Guerre serves as one of the most complete and full accounts of this vivid tale from 16th century rural France. Through deep research and analysis, Davis is able to accurately produce a historical reconstruction of Arnaud De Tilh: the peasant who became Martin Guerre. Natalie Zemon Davis is a leading European historian. She graduated from Smith College, earned a…

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    The story, The Return of Martin Guerre, by Natalie Zemon Davis is an interesting tale of impersonation and deception. In the story, Bertrande de Rols thoughtfully uses the stereotypes of women to her advantage. Women in the time of this story were thought of the lesser gender; Bertrande benefitted from this idea as she tried to create the life and the marriage that she desired in a world where a woman’s opinion was not often considered. In the very beginning of The Return of Martin Guerre,…

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    The story of Martin Guerre has traversed centuries and borders. Daniel Vigne told this story with the modern film “The Return of Martin Guerre.” This film has received attention from historical scholars mainly because a well-established historian, Natalie Zamon Davis, was a consultant in the development of this film. Davis also generated her own academic history of the same story after her experience as a consultant. She claimed that after the film gave little consideration to historical facts…

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    The film The Return of Martin Guerre details the story of Martin Guerre, a peasant living in 16th century France, who disappears after being accused of stealing sacks of grain by his father. After leaving his wife, Bertrande, and son, Sanxi, for eight years he returns from fighting in the Hundred Years' War. However, doubts arise on whether he is truly Martin or not when three men wandering into the village identify him as Arnaud du Tilh who fought alongside Martin in the war. Martin's uncle…

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    The story of Martin Guerre has traversed centuries and borders. The Return of Martin Guerre (Daniel Vigne, 1982) is an adaptation of a true story of a southern sixteenth-century French village. This film has received attention from historical scholars, mainly because a well-established historian, Natalie Zemon Davis, was a “conseiller historique for the film” (Benson 49). Davis also generated her own academic history of the story after her experience as a consultant. She claims the film had…

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    This paper will consist of an analysis of the treatments of Martin Guerre in the film The Return of Martin Guerre by Vigne, and On the Lame by Natalie Davis. These two articles may be about the same case however they are significantly different in various ways. The key point of this essay is to make efforts to differentiate the two and show how a chain of historic events can be converted into a movie and also transformed into a book. Both the film and the book have the same name. Strikingly a…

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    Davis calls her piety into question, even claiming that it is extremely possible that she may have turned toward Protestantism in light of the situation. She has very little support for this opinion, and it is most likely a biased conclusion she drew in order to support her claims. Her questionable reasoning for this thought is that Bertrande may have used the differences between the Catholic and Protestant Churches regarding the institution of marriage to her benefit in The Return of Martin…

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    Natalie Zemon Davis successfully unearths and retells the famous case of Martin Guerre, a peasant from sixteenth century France who returns home to find that another man, Arnaud du Tilh, has stolen his identity and claimed his wife, Bertrande de Rols, and his property. Davis’ uses two primary sources to influence her writing. The book, “Arreste Memorable” by Judge Jean de Coras and “The Admirable History of the Pseudo-Martin” by the lawyer Guillaume La Sueur. In addition, digs through court and…

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    is Guillaume La Sueur and his book called "the Admirable History of the Pseudo-Martin". Natalie Davis author also uses different secondary sources to find out the descriptive and detailed parts of the story. Also, Davis seeks to deeply analyze the social conditions of that time period, that could produce such a very strange act. Was it social condition or the religious belief, that impacted their life and interfered with that…

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