The Return Of Martin Guerre Analysis

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The Return of Martin Guerre According to Zemon Davis, Bertrande de Rols was a willing accomplice to Arnaud du Tilh’s crime of deception and fraud. In The Return of Martin Guerre, she questions Bertrande’s role in the Martin Guerre case. She accuses Bertrande of knowing that the new Martin Guerre was not her husband, but a stranger claiming to be the man she was married to. On the contrar, in the telling of the Martin Guerre case in Arrest Memorable by judge Jean de Coras, Bertrande is innocent. She is perceived as an ingenuous woman, who is mislead by a trickster/criminal. Throughout Zemon Davis’s retelling of the story, she argues that this is not a true judgement of Bertrande. She analysis Jean de Coras’ writing to come up with her interpretation of the case. She disapproves of the …show more content…
According to Davis, it is clouded through the eyes of a patriarchal society. However, there is room to doubt whether Bertrande was really an accomplice to Arnaud du Tilh, as told by Davis, since the original case does not write her in as one. In “The Refashioning of Martin Guerre” by Robert Finley, he very much disagrees with Davis. He questions her “reconstruction” of the case. He does not agree with Davis, in the way she suggests that Bertrande was an accomplice. Perhaps, he blames her “modernistic” views taking an undertone on her interpretation, rather than letting the 16th century peasant life speak for itself. It is fair to say that one may never know the truth behind Bertrande’s role in the case. However, through careful research of the time period and social roles, without the context of modernist ideologies, Bertrande de Rols can be viewed as a willing accomplice to Arnuad du Tilh. Due to social obligations (or limitations) for women of the 16th century, not only was Bertrande de Rols a willing accomplice, but had her own agenda for why she allowed
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