Future King Themes
Plot Summary
Young "Wart" is the adopted son of a minor nobleman when he meets Merlyn, a kindly magician, who takes him on many adventures, turning him into several different animals and teaching him skills, both mental and physical. Wart is very happy and learns to treat people with respect and kindness. Soon after ,Wart pulls a magical sword from a stone, which proves him to be the rightful king of England (his real father was the recently dead King.) Merlyn, who knew this from the start, advises Wart-now called Arthur-on how to be a good king. What Arthur really wants to do is end chaos that passes for law in his country. He wants his men-the knights of the round table-to help defenseless people and prevent the rich and strong from simply …show more content…
Therefore, war is inevitable, and war emerges as one of the major themes of The Once and Future King. But White presents war as an inexcusable barbarism, a pointless and ugly tragedy. Merlyn tells Arthur that the only time the use of force is justified is for self-defense.
The novel maintains an antiwar stance partly to challenge the important role that war plays in the rest of the Arthurian canon. Unlike in other classic Arthurian texts, the battle scenes in White’s novel are few and not terribly graphic. In the few battle that are in the novel, White satirizes knighthood and emphasizes the bloodshed and carnage that necessarily accompanies war. White underscores this point with the lessons that the Wart learns during his tutelage. In the Wart’s adventures in the animal kingdom among the fish, ants, and geese, he develops a sense that war is essentially unnatural. The only animals that practice war as a matter of course are the ants, and they seem more like robots than living beings. By the time Arthur becomes king, he has begun to understand how to see through the myths that glorify war and to understand the injustice of using might to make right. For instance, at the beginning of “The Queen of Air and Darkness,” the novel’s second book, Arthur realizes that knights on a battlefield are essentially bullies, hiding in suits of heavy armor as they slaughter the defenseless and
Young "Wart" is the adopted son of a minor nobleman when he meets Merlyn, a kindly magician, who takes him on many adventures, turning him into several different animals and teaching him skills, both mental and physical. Wart is very happy and learns to treat people with respect and kindness. Soon after ,Wart pulls a magical sword from a stone, which proves him to be the rightful king of England (his real father was the recently dead King.) Merlyn, who knew this from the start, advises Wart-now called Arthur-on how to be a good king. What Arthur really wants to do is end chaos that passes for law in his country. He wants his men-the knights of the round table-to help defenseless people and prevent the rich and strong from simply …show more content…
Therefore, war is inevitable, and war emerges as one of the major themes of The Once and Future King. But White presents war as an inexcusable barbarism, a pointless and ugly tragedy. Merlyn tells Arthur that the only time the use of force is justified is for self-defense.
The novel maintains an antiwar stance partly to challenge the important role that war plays in the rest of the Arthurian canon. Unlike in other classic Arthurian texts, the battle scenes in White’s novel are few and not terribly graphic. In the few battle that are in the novel, White satirizes knighthood and emphasizes the bloodshed and carnage that necessarily accompanies war. White underscores this point with the lessons that the Wart learns during his tutelage. In the Wart’s adventures in the animal kingdom among the fish, ants, and geese, he develops a sense that war is essentially unnatural. The only animals that practice war as a matter of course are the ants, and they seem more like robots than living beings. By the time Arthur becomes king, he has begun to understand how to see through the myths that glorify war and to understand the injustice of using might to make right. For instance, at the beginning of “The Queen of Air and Darkness,” the novel’s second book, Arthur realizes that knights on a battlefield are essentially bullies, hiding in suits of heavy armor as they slaughter the defenseless and