What Is The Moral Of The Death Of King Arthur By Thomas Kenneth

In Thomas Mallory’s King Arthur, he emphasizes the values of the people in this time period. He does this through characters and through conflicts that occur in the story. Throughout the story, Mallory gives the readers a better understanding of how the people viewed kings and their expectations of how the nobility should act. Not only that, but also the different beliefs and customs of the time period. Values that Mallory emphasizes many times throughout the epic is the value of humility and mercy. Humility and mercy is shown through different characters and conflicts in the epic as well. In the Birth of King Arthur,Ulfius took Igraine as his wife with the aid of Merlin, in which they agreed that Ulfius would give his first born son to him in return. In Merlin’s doing, Arthur was born into a poor family and was raised to be a humble and kind-hearted person. Arthur shows this when he pulls the sword out of the stone for his brother Sir Kay. When Sir Kay saw the sword “...he knew it came from the stone and he went quickly to his father…” and claimed “...I have the sword of the stone.”(pg141) Arthur didn’t say he was the one who took the sword from the stone, instead he let his brother take the
While dying, he asks Sir Bedivere to take his sword and drop in the ocean. Sir Bedivere disobeys his words twice in which King Arthur replied,though he knew him to be telling a lie, to go “lightly again and do my commandment.”(182) This emphasizes how much mercy is considered. King Arthur is dying, yet he still shows mercy to Sir Bedivere and tells him to obey his commandment. Mercy is also shown as a value when King Arthur sees King Mordred alone and decides to kill him with the chance he has. Sir Lucan asks King Arthur to “let him be for he is unhappy,”(179) Mercy is not only valued by the king but also by the knight as well. This emphasizes that mercy was a value that was shared by many in this time