Anita Obermeier

I really enjoyed your juxtoposition upon a woman's role within society displayed within the story. I would go further in asserting that the loathly lady motif portrays a value system for the Middle Ages regarding the gender role expectations. Dame Ragnelle displays a role of gaining power from a society that does not value her own agency as a woman. I would also think that further study upon the thought that her first interaction with Authur is through disguise and the subsequent tricking of the leadership with said disguise illustrates her ability to act outside the normal gender expectations.

It would also seem important to assess or analyze how certain aspects of the story changed based upon the genre that it is presented. As above you pointed out the children's story, I would wonder how the Winnings Motif is portrayed for a story meant for children might manifest. I would be interested in engaging with a video game portrayal of this story since it has many aspects of a RPG.

I think that this article does stretch the point in which we can impose our own thoughts upon other generations. I would say that the point of kissing is a mirroring to Jesus being willing to commune with those of a lower class of society. The leper was thought to have had something sinfully wrong with them in order to be cursed with such a disease, thus should not be touched because the were unclean. This uncleaness was not only on the outside, for lepers, but on the inside as well. Kempe's willingness to have any kind of intimacy (nonsexual) would be to go against the mores of the day and align herself with figures such as the Christ more than being a play at sexual indiscretions.

This article struck me as not making sense in the fact that we are speaking towards an agency of an entity that does not represent any agency. Though I would agree that sympathy for an animal, outside of literature, should be valued. The use of any kind of individual within a story is not a actual representation of actual life. A fox inside a story does not have agency because it was not written to have one, but the author of the article would not have it the other way either. If an author gives agency to an animal then it can only serve as an allusion to a human trait, because the author is human themselves. When a fox decides to write a novel and relate how a fox would view the world and their own agency then we can, as readers, finally be able to know what the fox has to say.

I thought that Fisher had made a case for Norman assimilation and certain amount of Britainia assimilation by pointing toward the stories themselves. However, I do not know how Fisher may validate that this was Marie's intent upon relaying these lais. I would agree with you that though a connection can be seen it would be insufficient to say that these were the intent behind these stories.

I agree with the lack of legal vocabulary in the article. Though I guess I just assumed that it was represented rather than expressed in terminology. Though I do not have extensive knowledge of legal matters of that time, I believe the article points toward the peace making without legality being involved as mirroring their plea to regard Nicholas in the argument.