HERE LIES ARTHUR PHILLIP REEVES

Picture taken from google images SUMMARY

• Here Lies Arthur is an adolescent novel about a girl named Gwyna who we first meet as a servant who is running for her life from an attack on her home as everyone around her dies. She meets Myrddin, who takes her back to the small area he was staying at and he convinces her to help him convince the general Arthur that he is getting a sword from a lady in the water. Not knowing what else to do, Gwyna follows through with the plan and waited until Arthur comes to the water, to pass up the sword. From there, she thought she was going to die because no one needed her anymore, but Myrddin keeps her, but has her act like a boy to keep her safe. • Over the years she learns how to act like a boy and travels with Myrddin and Arthur’s caravan as they try to get Arthur more power. To help with this power, Myrddin is able to talk Arthur to marry . As she grows older, she can no longer hide who she is as well and so she then has to learn about how to act like a woman which Myrddin uses this advantage by having her become one of Guinevere’s ladies in waiting. Through her time helping Guinevere, she learns that Bedwyr and Guinevere start having an affair and Arthur finds out by Myrddin and not only kills Bedwyr, but Guinevere and Gwyna run away. At the end of the novel, Gwyna not only sees Myrddin pass away, but helps to end the circle of Arthur’s reign by placing his sword back in the lake like he asks while he dies in battle. She continues to travel to keep the story of Arthur going in order to create her own path. STORY TELLING AND THE TRADITION

• Myrddin spins stories about Arthur to make him look good • • Green Giant • • Uther and Igraine • • and Caliburn • People lie/ exploit tradition to get their way • • Gwyna and Peredur’s gender • • Crooked priest DISGUISES

• In Here Lies Arthur the main character Gwyna disguises herself in two ways. She disguises herself as a boy and as a Pagan water spirit, acting as the . Both of these disguises, or rather, transformations, are at first fashioned by Myrddin; he disguises her as the Lady of the Lake for his own gains and then later disguises her as a boy to save her life. When she matures, she has to transform back into a girl, once again prompted by Myrddin. These transformations parallel those undergone by the Wart in the Sword in the Stone; the transformation into the Lady of the Lake even benefits Arthur as well as Myrddin. Additionally, both the Wart • and Gwyna are essentially both Myrddin's pupils. However, unlike the Wart, two does not learn how to use the magic of transformation himself, Gwyna manages to master the “magic” of transformation or disguise (as well as his art of storytelling) for her own ends. It is for this reason and others that she is primarily a embodiment of the character Nimue. Although Myrddin has a familial love for Gwyna instead of the infatuation for Nimue, he still does love her greatly, and her mastery of the magic of transformation is what leads to his demise. After years of living of the woman, Gwyna takes the disguise of a boy (or in this case, young man) by herself for the sake of helping another character, Peri. disapproves, as she's going into war territory, but she ignores him. During the time she's spends helping Peri, she also demonstrates complete mastery of the magic of transformation by at one point using the Lake Lady disguise to help bolster Peri's spirits. After that, she becomes a boy again. • When she returns to Myrddin, he is on his deathbed and he dies within the day, driven to frailty and sickness and death out of worry and concern for her when she left him. After his death, she buries him in the hollow of the tree, similar to the version of Nimue and Myrddin's story where Myrddin is trapped inside a tree. After this point she once again (though inadvertently) uses the magic of disguise on the battlefield, where Arthur mistakes her for Myrddin. She accepts the role, using it to fulfill Arthur's dying wish, and then turns his death into a story that she can use by telling to earn money, thereby continuing to use a skill of Myrddin's to make a life for herself and Peri, even though she has left behind the magic of disguise and at the end is living as a woman. GENDER ROLES

• In this novel, the main character, Gwyna, switches gender frequently, resulting in a gender neutral character. She can and does represent both of the societally stereotypical gender roles throughout the book. Gwyna switches gender at the beginning of the novel in order to stay with Myrddin and to stay alive. This switch saves her from an otherwise hopeless and hapless life. Gender switching is a matter of life or death in this novel. Becoming a boy saves her life, placing men's lives above female's lives in the society. Men are fed and cared for, as they keep up strength for battle, a young slave girl would have been left behind with no shelter or food. HOWEVER. The character Peri also switched genders from male to female in order to save his life in the war-torn society.... These gender switches are done secretively and involve taking on the full appearance and gender stereotypes, allowing them safety and new world-views. • These switches are logical, methodical, and necessary. HOWEVER. Later in the novel, Gwynefar and Bedwyr switch stereotypical gender roles (ie, masc=strong, fem=weak) and this results in challenging the morals and hierarchies of their society and, inevitably, their deaths. Peri and Gwyna's gender bending allows them the opportunity to see life on both ends of the spectrum and allow them for a more diverse and complete understanding of how their society works as a whole. For Gwyna, it also allows her character an easier time at narration. Through living in both roles, she can more "accurately" depict how both genders work in society and perceive the events around them. This also allows her to read as a very gender neutral character which appeals to many different young adult lit readers. However, being a neutral character can also cause the novel to be a little uninteresting and dull at times.