Chrétien De Troyes 'The Story Of The Grail'

The Failure to Ask

The Story of the Grail, by Chrétien de Troyes, is a that poem tells the story of Perceval, a teenager raised in a forest by his mother, who encounters some knights, then sees, by chance, a grail in a castle. Not understanding the significance of this, he misses the chance to find out the true nature of the grail by not asking about it. He then wanders in the hopes of finding it again. The story is both that of Perceval’s coming of age and his quest. The first part shows how this teenager, after being raised in a forest by his mother, discovers the ways of the world – he discovers knights, and kings, tastes the pleasures of love and the pain of combat. Naïve at first, he slowly adapts to his world, yet never really fits in.
The poem begins when Perceval, raised in the wild forest by his overprotective mother, encounters five knights of Arthur’s court. With their coats and armor shining and glistening in the sun, Perceval believes that he has met God and his angels. Gently they explain to him that they are knights of King Arthur, and go on to tell him a little of knighthood. When he learns the truth of who they are and what they stand for, his interest in the knights is insatiable. Perceval at once determines to leave home, despite his mother’s horrified reluctance to let him go, and go in search of King Arthur’s court so that he too can be made a knight. His mother mourns, saying she had kept him from the world because his brothers, both knights, had been killed in combat. But Perceval insists on leaving, so his mother gives in and instead of continuing fighting with him, she leaves him with some advice. His mother tells him to: pg 1334 Help maidens in distress, she tells him; he may accept a kiss or ring from a maiden, but nothing else; he should not be long with a man without learning his name; and above all else, his mother says, he should visit churches to pray. As he rides away, he looks back and sees his mother fall to the ground, but fails to turn around to help her. This
Captivated in its beauty, Perceval comes to the conclusion that something as beautiful could only be a church. Upon entering, he realized that he has made a mistake. Perceval clumsily enters, where he finds, and frightens the maiden who was peacefully asleep. Remembering the advice from his mother, he kisses her seven times and takes a ring from her finger, comically and ironically misapplying his mother’s advice and ends up offending the maiden. In this scene, we can see the immaturity and naivety of Perceval. He is unable to comprehend the advice that his mother gave him, which causes him to deeply offend the maiden. Due to his lack of maturity, Perceval was not able to think for himself, and actually read the situation he was in. Instead, he took his mothers words and applied their meaning quite literally. With this mistake, the reader is able to get a glimpse of how Perceval is truly unable to think for himself and apply any common sense when in new situations. This incident with the maiden foretells his future mistakes, including the mistake he makes when not asking information about the