41 pages • 1 hour read
Natalie Zemon DavisThe Return of Martin Guerre
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1983A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
The Marriage Bed
This symbol of a lifelong union between a man and wife should represent stability and togetherness, but for Martin Guerre and Bertrande de Rols, their marriage bed represented dysfunction, incompatibility, and ridicule. The instability of their marriage had its origins in the unsuccessful first attempts at consummating soon after the conclusion of the wedding ceremony. Eventually, this problem was remedied by yet another woman, which may have further emasculated Martin.
Martin had grown up in a household full of women, led by two overbearing men, his father and his uncle. Martin’s impotence was the likely result of an over-pressured situation on a young boy with few encouraging male role models. When he first found himself in his marriage bed with Bertrande, Martin likely had little understanding of what was required of him. In contrast, Arnaud du Tilhhad an excess of knowledge that he gained during his hedonistic youth pursuing women and other pleasures. The marriage bed Arnaud shared with Bertrande was perhaps a steadier one, representing the happy union Bertrande may have hoped for in Martin.
The Wooden Leg
Martin’s wooden leg is a symbol representing Martin’s figurative incompleteness as a husband, who required eight years and a magic spell to be able to consummate his marriage. Though Martin lost his leg in battle after his abandonment of his wife and family, the wooden leg that replaced his real leg can be interpreted as a symbol of his incompleteness in the context of his masculinity.
As well, the wooden leg is a synecdoche, representing Martin as a physically incomplete, but still very much a whole, person upon his return to his family. The legend of Martin Guerre is heightened by the drama of his wooden leg; one can imagine the sound of it against a cold floor as he enters the courtroom in Toulouse as clearly as one can imagine the shock of the people who recognized his face before they understood that his body was damaged and incomplete.
Names
The motif of names is identifiable throughout the story of Martin Guerre. The changeable quality of names, in the forms of nicknames, assumed names, and stolen names, can be traced in the individual stories of the Daguerres, whose Basque family name changed to Guerre, of Pierre, who took a French name upon his arrival to Artigat, and of Arnaud du Tilh, whose nickname “Pansette,” precedes his stealing of the name of Martin Guerre.
During this time in France, no credible nor official system of identifying oneself existed, and peasants had no documents that they could produce at the ready to prove one was actually who he (or she) claimed to be. Names had a cultural value, one that could only be determined by interpersonal trust and observable qualities of believability. The Daguerres were easily identifiable in Artigat as Basque travelers who had moved to settle in Languedoc, so the change in their names made sense and the villagers in Artigat likely accepted the change without any suspicion. Arnaud du Tilh’s change of name, on the other hand, was underhanded and criminal, an abuse of trust that violated the unspoken laws of the open culture that accepted him.
