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Themes In The Wife Of Martin Guerre

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TWOMG has been described as a classic 16th century love story. Refer to specific stylistic features to argue for/against this.

In the wife of Martin Guerre, Janet Lewis uses a range of stylistic feature to create a story that has love as one of the central themes, but that not a “classic love story”. These features include the fairly constant inner monologue of Bertrande, the context surrounding Martin’s relationship with Bertrande, and language choices. The features are used in various different ways, which gives the reader not only a sense of what is happening in the story and how the characters are feeling, but also how much love there is. To have a love story, one has to first have love. There is not sufficient evidence provided in …show more content…

The love between them does not grow, or is not allowed to grow due to the context that surrounds their marriage, and although Bertrande speaks of ‘her love lost [quote], she does not really love him, but just wishes for some form of structure, routine that she does not have to decide upon. Martin is continually cruel to Bertrande throughout the novel, and he even accuses her of being unfaithful when she finally challenges the imposter, and sacrifices the happiness of her family for her need for normalness, saying “the examples of my sister and uncle can be no excuse for you, Madame, who new me better than any living soul. The error into which you plunged could have only been caused by wilful blindness. You, and only you are answerable for the dishonour that has befallen me.” Martin clearly has no love for Bertrande, and also feels the need to shift the blame from himself to another. This seems to be the final blow for Bertrande, who Martin left for years to endure a moral conflict that tears apart both her body and soul, and it is clear that Martin has not returned because he loves his wife and child, but to reclaim his property and role a head of the

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