Women throughout history have played many different roles in the world. Historically speaking, women were seen as the possessions of their fathers, brothers, and husbands. They accepted their positions in a man’s world without complaint and were supportive of their men. Women in medieval Germany were expected to be good mothers, wives, and hosts, but Kriemhild broke with tradition by ignoring these typical womanly roles in exchange for more masculine ones. She learns to question their roles and places in society. She wants to be part of the world ruled by men and rebelled against stereotypes. The Nibelungenlied presents readers with both, typical and untypical women in contrast with one another. To see exactly how Kriemhild was unique we must first look at who was considered the “perfect” women, according to her societies standards. Women such as, Singlint, Uote, and Gotelind were seen to represent the classic …show more content…
This was the cause for her rebellion against the roles assigned to women by society. she couldn’t be satisfied with these roles like traditional women could. One Historian writes, “Women in medieval epics, for example, are defined in relation to the hero. As mother, princess, beloved… the female character’s story merits greater attention, or less attention, according to the value that it has for the hero’s story.” This quote sums up the way the society viewed women in the Nibelungenlied and how they were accepted in society. Women could only be as important as the men in their life. However Kriemhild wasn’t always able to accept living in the shadows of the men around her and felt the need to rebel and break longstanding traditions of the medieval time period. Now that we can recognize some of the characteristics of women who conformed to the roles set by society for women at this time, we can see and begin to understand Kriemhild’s rebellious