Le Retour De Martin Guerre Analysis

Comparison of Vigne’s Film Version with Davis’s Interpretation of the Martin Guerre Episode It is very interesting to note that Martin Guerre’s scandal represents a complicated enigma, especially in the sixteenth-century as it has been said “truth is stranger than fiction”. Therefore, this case grabs many artists’ and historians’ attention to reflect it into literature and historical works. Many works have been written to describe this incident, including but not restricted to Davie’s book and Vigne’s movie, the two works will be examined in this research; they are based on a famous case of the identity theft that took place in the sixteenth-century, France. The film was produced in 1982 under the title Le Retour de Martin Guerre

However, Davis’s approach employs another method that represents a new perspective of history, which known as History from Below. “This kind of history opens a new area of research to explore the historical experience of those men and women whose existence is so often ignored” (Burke 26). The New History is more concerned with the analysis of the structure. Hence, she was highly interested to write a book in this story since traditional historians left behind because their method is rather limited. The new method allows her to fill the gap in the missing information (silence on Coras’s book) by inferring from her reading of the historical record. In other words, The Davis’s aim for writing this book is twofold. First, she felt that the film had not been faithful to the true story, and so she researched further to seek the truth. Second, she wanted to make “a historical sense of it” (Davis viii) in order to approve how the new approach of history is effective to unfold the hidden secrets. As a matter of fact, Davis, in her book “The Return of Martin Guerre” approaches the story by using this method. Basically, she banks on two resources as a way of ground to portray her approach; combing a legal text and a literary tale into a valuable book. Davis’s main argument is that without Bertrande collaboration, none of this could happen. In other words, according to Davis, “Bertrande must have realized the difference; any wife of Artigat would have agreed, there is no mistake ‘the touch of the man on the women’ either by explicit or tacit agreement, she helped him to become her husband” (44). She knew from the beginning that the imposter was not her real husband, but she took the advantage of him (Fake Martin) because she needs a man in that society. Thus, the two were “invented marriage” under the umbrella of Protestantism. As stated by Davis “It is possible, even