Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, and literary
devices that can help to develop and inform the text’s major themes.
Myths and Legends
The Once and Future King relies heavily
on a variety of myths and legends to tell its story. Most notably,
the entire novel is a reworking of the Arthur myth. White continually
acknowledges that he is modernizing old stories by referring specifically
to his sources. For example, the novel contains many asides about
Sir Thomas Malory, quoting passages and pieces of dialogue from
his fifteenth-century Le Morte d’Arthur. Malory
even appears as a young page at the end of the novel. White flips
the Arthurian legend around by constantly calling attention to the
fact that his story has a precedent and by then exposing that precedent’s
flaws. At times, it seems as if White is interested in debunking
the validity of knighthood and also attacking the myths and legends
that have romanticized knighthood for so long.
Blood Sports
White expresses the conflict between the brutality and
courtesy of knightood by making frequent reference to blood sports,
such as hunting and hawking. Like knightly warfare, blood sports
are motivated by aggression and involve a great deal of brutality.
But, like the code of chivalry, blood sports also involve a great
deal of tradition and ritual. The Wart’s studying, for example,
of the “etiquette of hunting” shows that blood sports are governed
by a code of etiquette as strict as the one imposed on the bloody
business of jousting. Like warfare, therefore, the blood sports
in the novel boast a civilized veneer that masks their violent underpinnings.
Castles
Each of the different books in The Once and Future
King revolves around a select few settings, and each of
these settings is represented by a single castle that has a unique
character. In “The Sword and the Stone,” for example, Arthur’s home
is represented by Sir Ector’s Castle of the Forest Sauvage, a cozy
place with a seemingly endless number of nooks and crannies for
us to explore along with the Wart. Sir Ector’s castle is markedly
different, however, from the glorious Camelot or the gloomy castle
at Orkney. The castles in the novel have their own personalities
that embody the hopes and fears of their inhabitants. Their heavily
fortified walls vividly illustrate the separation between the novel’s
worlds. When Uncle Dap finds Lancelot after his madness, for example,
he refuses to enter Castle Bliant. He sits outside its wall, waiting
to take Lancelot back to the intrigue of Camelot and Guenever and
to leave behind the relatively banal world in which Elaine lives.
